,the ,pursuit of ,god ,then shall we know1 if we follow on to know the ,lord3 his going forth is prepared as the morning4 ,,hosea #f3c by ,a4 ,w4 ,tozer introduction by ,dr4 ,samuel ,m4 ,zwemer ,,christian ,,publications1 ,,inc4 ,,harrisburg1 ,,pa4 ,,copyright ,,mcmxlviii ,,by ,,christian ,,publications1 ,,inc4 ,printed in ,united ,states ,contents ,introduction #e ,preface #g ,i ,following ,hard after ,god #aa ,,ii ,the ,blessedness of ,possessing ,nothing #ba ,,iii ,removing the ,veil #cc ,,iv ,apprehending ,god #di ,v ,the ,universal ,presence #fa ,,vi ,the ,speaking ,voice #gc ,,vii ,the ,gaze of the ,soul #he ,,viii ,restoring the ,creator-creature ,relation #ii ,,ix ,meekness and ,rest #aji ,x ,the ,sacrament of ,living #aag ,introduction ,here is a masterly study of the inner life by a heart thirsting after ,god1 eager to grasp at least the outskirts of ,his ways1 the abyss of ,his love for sinners1 and the height of ,his unapproachable majesty--and it was written by a busy pastor in ,chicago6 ,who could imagine ,david writing the twenty-third ,psalm on ,south ,halsted ,street1 or a medieval mystic finding inspiration in a small study on the second floor of a frame house on that vast1 flat checker-board of endless streets ,where cross the crowded ways of life ,where sound the cries of race and clan1 ,in haunts of wretchedness and need1 ,on shadowed threshold dark with fears1 ,and paths where hide the lures of greed 444 ,but even as ,dr4 ,frank ,mason ,north1 of ,new ,york1 says in his immortal poem1 so ,mr4 ,tozer says in this book3 ,above the noise of selfish strife ,we hear ,thy voice1 ,o ,son of ,man4 ,my acquaintance with the author is limited to brief visits and loving fellowship in his church4 ,there ,i discovered a self-made scholar1 an omnivorous reader with a remarkable library of theological and devotional books1 and one who seemed to burn the midnight oil in pursuit of ,god4 ,his book is the result of long meditation and much prayer4 ,it is not a collection of sermons4 ,it does not deal with the pulpit and the pew but with the soul athirst for ,god4 ,the chapters could be summarized in ,moses' prayer1 ,show me thy glory1 or ,paul's exclamation1 ,o the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of ,god6 ,it is theology not of the head but of the heart4 ,there is deep insight1 sobriety of style1 and a catholicity of outlook that is refreshing4 ,the author has few quotations but he knows the saints and mystics of the centuries--,augustine1 ,nicholas of ,cusa1 ,thomas a ,kempis1 von ,huegel1 ,finney1 ,wesley and many more4 ,the ten chapters are heart searching and the prayers at the close of each are for closet1 not pulpit4 ,i felt the nearness of ,god while reading them4 ,here is a book for every pastor1 missionary1 and devout ,christian4 ,it deals with the deep things of ,god and the riches of ,his grace4 ,above all1 it has the keynote of sincerity and humility4 ,samuel ,m4 ,zwemer ,new ,york ,city ,preface ,in this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears3 within the fold of conservative ,christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after ,god ,himself4 ,they are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words1 nor will they be content with correct interpretations of truth4 ,they are athirst for ,god1 and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the ,fountain of ,living ,water4 ,this is the only real harbinger of revival which ,i have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon4 ,it may be the cloud the size of a man's hand for which a few saints here and there have been looking4 ,it can result in a resurrection of life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should accompany faith in ,christ1 that wonder which has all but fled the ,church of ,god in our day4 ,but this hunger must be recognized by our religious leaders4 ,current evangelicalism has 7to change the figure7 laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts1 but now seems satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty ,carmel4 ,but ,god be thanked that there are a few who care4 ,they are those who1 while they love the altar and delight in the sacrifice1 are yet unable to reconcile themselves to the continued absence of fire4 ,they desire ,god above all4 ,they are athirst to taste for themselves the piercing sweetness of the love of ,christ about ,whom all the holy prophets did write and the psalmists did sing4 ,there is today no lack of ,bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of ,christ1 but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year1 strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest ,presence1 nor anything unusual in their personal lives4 ,they minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy4 ,i trust ,i speak in charity1 but the lack in our pulpits is real4 ,milton's terrible sentence applies to our day as accurately as it did to his3 ,the hungry sheep look up1 and are not fed4 ,it is a solemn thing1 and no small scandal in the ,kingdom1 to see ,god's children starving while actually seated at the ,father's table4 ,the truth of ,wesley's words is established before our eyes3 ,orthodoxy1 or right opinion1 is1 at best1 a very slender part of religion4 ,though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions1 yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers4 ,there may be a right opinion of ,god without either love or one right temper toward ,him4 ,satan is a proof of this4 ,thanks to our splendid ,bible societies and to other effective agencies for the dissemination of the ,word1 there are today many millions of people who hold right opinions1 probably more than ever before in the history of the ,church4 ,yet ,i wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual worship was at a lower ebb4 ,to great sections of the ,church the art of worship has been lost entirely1 and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the program4 ,this word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us4 ,sound ,bible exposition is an imperative must in the ,church of the ,living ,god4 ,without it no church can be a ,new ,testament church in any strict meaning of that term4 ,but exposition may be carried on in such way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever4 ,for it is not mere words that nourish the soul1 but ,god ,himself1 and unless and until the hearers find ,god in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth4 ,the ,bible is not an end in itself1 but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of ,god1 that they may enter into ,him1 that they may delight in ,his ,presence1 may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very ,god ,himself in the core and center of their hearts4 ,this book is a modest attempt to aid ,god's hungry children so to find ,him4 ,nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities most delightful and wonderful to me4 ,others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries than ,i have done1 but if my fire is not large it is yet real1 and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame4 ,a4 ,w4 ,tozer ,chicago1 ,ill4 ,june #af1 #aidh ,i ,following ,hard after ,god ,my soul followeth hard after thee3 thy right hand upholdeth me4--,psa4 #fc3h ,christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace1 which briefly stated means this1 that before a man can seek ,god1 ,god must first have sought the man4 ,before a sinful man can think a right thought of ,god1 there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him2 imperfect it may be1 but a true work nonetheless1 and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow4 ,we pursue ,god because1 and only because1 ,he has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit4 ,no man can come to me1 said our ,lord1 except the ,father which hath sent me draw him1 and it is by this very prevenient drawing that ,god takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming4 ,the impulse to pursue ,god originates with ,god1 but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after ,him2 and all the time we are pursuing ,him we are already in ,his hand3 ,thy right hand upholdeth me4 ,in this divine upholding and human following there is no contradiction4 ,all is of ,god1 for as von ,huegel teaches1 ,god is always previous4 ,in practice1 however1 7that is1 where ,god's previous working meets man's present response7 man must pursue ,god4 ,on our part there must be positive reciprocation if this secret drawing of ,god is to eventuate in identifiable experience of the ,divine4 ,in the warm language of personal feeling this is stated in the ,forty-second ,psalm3 ,as the hart panteth after the water brooks1 so panteth my soul after thee1 ,o ,god4 ,my soul thirsteth for ,god1 for the living ,god3 when shall ,i come and appear before ,god8 ,this is deep calling unto deep1 and the longing heart will understand it4 ,the doctrine of justification by faith--a ,biblical truth1 and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort--has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of ,god4 ,the whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless4 ,faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the ,adamic ego4 ,christ may be received without creating any special love for ,him in the soul of the receiver4 ,the man is saved1 but he is not hungry nor thirsty after ,god4 ,in fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little4 ,the modern scientist has lost ,god amid the wonders of ,his world2 we ,christians are in real danger of losing ,god amid the wonders of ,his ,word4 ,we have almost forgotten that ,god is a ,person and1 as such1 can be cultivated as any person can4 ,it is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities1 but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter4 ,it is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored4 ,all social intercourse between human beings is a response of personality to personality1 grading upward from the most casual brush between man and man to the fullest1 most intimate communion of which the human soul is capable4 ,religion1 so far as it is genuine1 is in essence the response of created personalities to the ,creating ,personality1 ,god4 ,this is life eternal1 that they might know thee the only true ,god1 and ,jesus ,christ1 whom thou hast sent4 ,god is a ,person1 and in the deep of ,his mighty nature ,he thinks1 wills1 enjoys1 feels1 loves1 desires and suffers as any other person may4 ,in making ,himself known to us ,he stays by the familiar pattern of personality4 ,he communicates with us through the avenues of our minds1 our wills and our emotions4 ,the continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between ,god and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of ,new ,testament religion4 ,this intercourse between ,god and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness4 ,it is personal3 that is1 it does not come through the body of believers1 as such1 but is known to the individual1 and to the body through the individuals which compose it4 ,and it is conscious3 that is1 it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness and work there unknown to the soul 7as1 for instance1 infant baptism is thought by some to do71 but comes within the field of awareness where the man can know it as he knows any other fact of experience4 ,you and ,i are in little 7our sins excepted7 what ,god is in large4 ,being made in ,his image we have within us the capacity to know ,him4 ,in our sins we lack only the power4 ,the moment the ,spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to ,god and leaps up in joyous recognition4 ,that is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the ,kingdom of ,god4 ,it is1 however1 not an end but an inception1 for now begins the glorious pursuit1 the heart's happy exploration of the infinite riches of the ,godhead4 ,that is where we begin1 ,i say1 but where we stop no man has yet discovered1 for there is in the awful and mysterious depths of the ,triune ,god neither limit nor end4 ,shoreless ,ocean1 who can sound ,thee8 ,thine own eternity is round ,thee1 ,majesty divine6 ,to have found ,god and still to pursue ,him is the soul's paradox of love1 scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist1 but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart4 ,st4 ,bernard stated this holy paradox in a musical quatrain that will be instantly understood by every worshipping soul3 ,we taste ,thee1 ,o ,thou ,living ,bread1 ,and long to feast upon ,thee still3 ,we drink of ,thee1 the ,fountainhead ,and thirst our souls from ,thee to fill4 ,come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after ,god4 ,they mourned for ,him1 they prayed and wrestled and sought for ,him day and night1 in season and out1 and when they had found ,him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking4 ,moses used the fact that he knew ,god as an argument for knowing ,him better4 ,now1 therefore1 ,i pray thee1 if ,i have found grace in thy sight1 show me now thy way1 that ,i may know thee1 that ,i may find grace in thy sight2 and from there he rose to make the daring request1 ,i beseech thee1 show me thy glory4 ,god was frankly pleased by this display of ardor1 and the next day called ,moses into the mount1 and there in solemn procession made all ,his glory pass before him4 ,david's life was a torrent of spiritual desire1 and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder4 ,paul confessed the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after ,christ4 ,that ,i may know ,him1 was the goal of his heart1 and to this he sacrificed everything4 ,yea doubtless1 and ,i count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of ,christ ,jesus my ,lord3 for whom ,i have suffered the loss of all things1 and do count them but refuse1 that ,i may win ,christ4 ,hymnody is sweet with the longing after ,god1 the ,god whom1 while the singer seeks1 he knows he has already found4 ,his track ,i see and ,i'll pursue1 sang our fathers only a short generation ago1 but that song is heard no more in the great congregation4 ,how tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers4 ,everything is made to center upon the initial act of accepting ,christ 7a term1 incidentally1 which is not found in the ,bible7 and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of ,god to our souls4 ,we have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found ,him we need no more seek ,him4 ,this is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy1 and it is taken for granted that no ,bible-taught ,christian ever believed otherwise4 ,thus the whole testimony of the worshipping1 seeking1 singing ,church on that subject is crisply set aside4 ,the experiential heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of ,scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an ,augustine1 a ,rutherford or a ,brainerd4 ,in the midst of this great chill there are some1 ,i rejoice to acknowledge1 who will not be content with shallow logic4 ,they will admit the force of the argument1 and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray1 ,o ,god1 show me thy glory4 ,they want to taste1 to touch with their hearts1 to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is ,god4 ,i want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after ,god4 ,the lack of it has brought us to our present low estate4 ,the stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire4 ,complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth4 ,acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of ,christ to ,his people4 ,he waits to be wanted4 ,too bad that with many of us ,he waits so long1 so very long1 in vain4 ,every age has its own characteristics4 ,right now we are in an age of religious complexity4 ,the simplicity which is in ,christ is rarely found among us4 ,in its stead are programs1 methods1 organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart4 ,the shallowness of our inner experience1 the hollowness of our worship1 and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we1 in this day1 know ,god only imperfectly1 and the peace of ,god scarcely at all4 ,if we would find ,god amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find ,him1 and then proceed in the way of simplicity4 ,now as always ,god discovers ,himself to babes and hides ,himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent4 ,we must simplify our approach to ,him4 ,we must strip down to essentials 7and they will be found to be blessedly few74 ,we must put away all effort to impress1 and come with the guileless candor of childhood4 ,if we do this1 without doubt ,god will quickly respond4 ,when religion has said its last word1 there is little that we need other than ,god ,himself4 ,the evil habit of seeking ,god-and effectively prevents us from finding ,god in full revelation4 ,in the and lies our great woe4 ,if we omit the and we shall soon find ,god1 and in ,him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing4 ,we need not fear that in seeking ,god only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts4 ,the opposite is true4 ,we can well afford to make ,god our ,all1 to concentrate1 to sacrifice the many for the ,one4 ,the author of the quaint old ,english classic1 ,the ,cloud of ,unknowing1 teaches us how to do this4 ,lift up thine heart unto ,god with a meek stirring of love2 and mean ,himself1 and none of ,his goods4 ,and thereto1 look thee loath to think on aught but ,god ,himself4 ,so that nought work in thy wit1 nor in thy will1 but only ,god ,himself4 ,this is the work of the soul that most pleaseth ,god4 ,again1 he recommends that in prayer we practice a further stripping down of everything1 even of our theology4 ,for it sufficeth enough1 a naked intent direct unto ,god without any other cause than ,himself4 ,yet underneath all his thinking lay the broad foundation of ,new ,testament truth1 for he explains that by ,himself he means ,god that made thee1 and bought thee1 and that graciously called thee to thy degree4 ,and he is all for simplicity3 ,if we would have religion lapped and folden in one word1 for that thou shouldst have better hold thereupon1 take thee but a little word of one syllable3 for so it is better than of two1 for even the shorter it is the better it accordeth with the work of the ,spirit4 ,and such a word is this word ,,god or this word ,,love4 ,when the ,lord divided ,canaan among the tribes of ,israel ,levi received no share of the land4 ,god said to him simply1 ,i am thy part and thine inheritance1 and by those words made him richer than all his brethren1 richer than all the kings and rajas who have ever lived in the world4 ,and there is a spiritual principle here1 a principle still valid for every priest of the ,most ,high ,god4 ,the man who has ,god for his treasure has all things in ,one4 ,many ordinary treasures may be denied him1 or if he is allowed to have them1 the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness4 ,or if he must see them go1 one after one1 he will scarcely feel a sense of loss1 for having the ,source of all things he has in ,one all satisfaction1 all pleasure1 all delight4 ,whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing1 for he now has it all in ,one1 and he has it purely1 legitimately and forever4 ,o ,god1 ,i have tasted ,thy goodness1 and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more4 ,i am painfully conscious of my need of further grace4 ,i am ashamed of my lack of desire4 ,o ,god1 the ,triune ,god1 ,i want to want ,thee2 ,i long to be filled with longing2 ,i thirst to be made more thirsty still4 ,show me ,thy glory1 ,i pray ,thee1 that so ,i may know ,thee indeed4 ,begin in mercy a new work of love within me4 ,say to my soul1 ,rise up1 my love1 my fair one1 and come away4 ,then give me grace to rise and follow ,thee up from this misty lowland where ,i have wandered so long4 ,in ,jesus' ,name1 ,amen4 ,,ii ,the ,blessedness of ,possessing ,nothing ,blessed are the poor in spirit3 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven4--,matt4 #e3c ,before the ,lord ,god made man upon the earth ,he first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight4 ,in the ,genesis account of the creation these are called simply things4 ,they were made for man's uses1 but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him4 ,in the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but ,god was worthy to come4 ,within him was ,god2 without1 a thousand gifts which ,god had showered upon him4 ,but sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of ,god a potential source of ruin to the soul4 ,our woes began when ,god was forced out of ,his central shrine and things were allowed to enter4 ,within the human heart things have taken over4 ,men have now by nature no peace within their hearts1 for ,god is crowned there no longer1 but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne4 ,this is not a mere metaphor1 but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble4 ,there is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess1 always to possess4 ,it covets things with a deep and fierce passion4 ,the pronouns my and mine look innocent enough in print1 but their constant and universal use is significant4 ,they express the real nature of the old ,adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do4 ,they are verbal symptoms of our deep disease4 ,the roots of our hearts have grown down into things1 and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die4 ,things have become necessary to us1 a development never originally intended4 ,god's gifts now take the place of ,god1 and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution4 ,our ,lord referred to this tyranny of things when ,he said to ,his disciples1 ,if any man will come after me1 let him deny himself1 and take up his cross1 and follow me4 ,for whosoever will save his life shall lose it3 and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it4 ,breaking this truth into fragments for our better understanding1 it would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril4 ,jesus called it life and self1 or as we would say1 the self-life4 ,its chief characteristic is its possessiveness3 the words gain and profit suggest this4 ,to allow this enemy to live is in the end to lose everything4 ,to repudiate it and give up all for ,christ's sake is to lose nothing at last1 but to preserve everything unto life eternal4 ,and possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe3 it is by the ,cross4 ,let him take up his cross and follow me4 ,the way to deeper knowledge of ,god is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things4 ,the blessed ones who possess the ,kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing4 ,these are the poor in spirit4 ,they have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of ,jerusalem2 that is what the word poor as ,christ used it actually means4 ,these blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things4 ,they have broken the yoke of the oppressor2 and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering4 ,though free from all sense of possessing1 they yet possess all things4 ,theirs is the kingdom of heaven4 ,let me exhort you to take this seriously4 ,it is not to be understood as mere ,bible teaching to be stored away in the mind along with an inert mass of other doctrines4 ,it is a marker on the road to greener pastures1 a path chiseled against the steep sides of the mount of ,god4 ,we dare not try to by-pass it if we would follow on in this holy pursuit4 ,we must ascend a step at a time4 ,if we refuse one step we bring our progress to an end4 ,as is frequently true1 this ,new ,testament principle of spiritual life finds its best illustration in the ,old ,testament4 ,in the story of ,abraham and ,isaac we have a dramatic picture of the surrendered life as well as an excellent commentary on the first ,beatitude4 ,abraham was old when ,isaac was born1 old enough indeed to have been his grandfather1 and the child became at once the delight and idol of his heart4 ,from that moment when he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms he was an eager love slave of his son4 ,god went out of ,his way to comment on the strength of this affection4 ,and it is not hard to understand4 ,the baby represented everything sacred to his father's heart3 the promises of ,god1 the covenants1 the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream4 ,as he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son1 till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous4 ,it was then that ,god stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love4 ,take now thy son1 said ,god to ,abraham1 thine only son ,isaac1 whom thou lovest1 and get thee into the land of ,moriah2 and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which ,i will tell thee of4 ,the sacred writer spares us a close-up of the agony that night on the slopes near ,beersheba when the aged man had it out with his ,god1 but respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars4 ,possibly not again until a ,greater than ,abraham wrestled in the ,garden of ,gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul4 ,if only the man himself might have been allowed to die4 ,that would have been easier a thousand times1 for he was old now1 and to die would have been no great ordeal for one who had walked so long with ,god4 ,besides1 it would have been a last sweet pleasure to let his dimming vision rest upon the figure of his stalwart son who would live to carry on the ,abrahamic line and fulfill in himself the promises of ,god made long before in ,ur of the ,chaldees4 ,how should he slay the lad6 ,even if he could get the consent of his wounded and protesting heart1 how could he reconcile the act with the promise1 ,in ,isaac shall thy seed be called8 ,this was ,abraham's trial by fire1 and he did not fail in the crucible4 ,while the stars still shone like sharp white points above the tent where the sleeping ,isaac lay1 and long before the gray dawn had begun to lighten the east1 the old saint had made up his mind4 ,he would offer his son as ,god had directed him to do1 and then trust ,god to raise him from the dead4 ,this1 says the writer to the ,hebrews1 was the solution his aching heart found sometime in the dark night1 and he rose early in the morning to carry out the plan4 ,it is beautiful to see that1 while he erred as to ,god's method1 he had correctly sensed the secret of ,his great heart4 ,and the solution accords well with the ,new ,testament ,scripture1 ,whosoever will lose for my sake shall find4 ,god let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where ,he knew there would be no retreat1 and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy4 ,to the wondering patriarch ,he now says in effect1 ,it's all right1 ,abraham4 ,i never intended that you should actually slay the lad4 ,i only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that ,i might reign unchallenged there4 ,i wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love4 ,now you may have the boy1 sound and well4 ,take him and go back to your tent4 ,now ,i know that thou fearest ,god1 seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son1 thine only son1 from me4 ,then heaven opened and a voice was heard saying to him1 ,by myself have ,i sworn1 saith the ,lord1 for because thou hast done this thing1 and hast not withheld thy son1 thine only son3 that in blessing ,i will bless thee1 and in multiplying ,i will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven1 and as the sand which is upon the sea shore2 and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies2 and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed2 because thou hast obeyed my voice4 ,the old man of ,god lifted his head to respond to the ,voice1 and stood there on the mount strong and pure and grand1 a man marked out by the ,lord for special treatment1 a friend and favorite of the ,most ,high4 ,now he was a man wholly surrendered1 a man utterly obedient1 a man who possessed nothing4 ,he had concentrated his all in the person of his dear son1 and ,god had taken it from him4 ,god could have begun out on the margin of ,abraham's life and worked inward to the center2 ,he chose rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of separation4 ,in dealing thus ,he practiced an economy of means and time4 ,it hurt cruelly1 but it was effective4 ,i have said that ,abraham possessed nothing4 ,yet was not this poor man rich8 ,everything he had owned before was his still to enjoy3 sheep1 camels1 herds1 and goods of every sort4 ,he had also his wife and his friends1 and best of all he had his son ,isaac safe by his side4 ,he had everything1 but he possessed nothing4 ,there is the spiritual secret4 ,there is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation4 ,the books on systematic theology overlook this1 but the wise will understand4 ,after that bitter and blessed experience ,i think the words my and mine never had again the same meaning for ,abraham4 ,the sense of possession which they connote was gone from his heart4 ,things had been cast out forever4 ,they had now become external to the man4 ,his inner heart was free from them4 ,the world said1 ,abraham is rich1 but the aged patriarch only smiled4 ,he could not explain it to them1 but he knew that he owned nothing1 that his real treasures were inward and eternal4 ,there can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in the life4 ,because it is so natural it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is2 but its outworkings are tragic4 ,we are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the ,lord out of fear for their safety2 this is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends4 ,but we need have no such fears4 ,our ,lord came not to destroy but to save4 ,everything is safe which we commit to ,him1 and nothing is really safe which is not so committed4 ,our gifts and talents should also be turned over to ,him4 ,they should be recognized for what they are1 ,god's loan to us1 and should never be considered in any sense our own4 ,we have no more right to claim credit for special abilities than for blue eyes or strong muscles4 ,for who maketh thee to differ from another8 and what hast thou that thou didst not receive8 ,the ,christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady1 and will grieve to find them in his own heart4 ,if the longing after ,god is strong enough within him he will want to do something about the matter4 ,now1 what should he do8 ,first of all he should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the ,lord4 ,whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense1 and he will have no other2 but let him come defenseless before the ,lord and he will have for his defender no less than ,god ,himself4 ,let the inquiring ,christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the ,lord4 ,then he should remember that this is holy business4 ,no careless or casual dealings will suffice4 ,let him come to ,god in full determination to be heard4 ,let him insist that ,god accept his all1 that ,he take things out of his heart and ,himself reign there in power4 ,it may be he will need to become specific1 to name things and people by their names one by one4 ,if he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in their dealings with ,god4 ,let us never forget that such a truth as this cannot be learned by rote as one would learn the facts of physical science4 ,they must be experienced before we can really know them4 ,we must in our hearts live through ,abraham's harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which follows them4 ,the ancient curse will not go out painlessly2 the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command4 ,he must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil2 he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw4 ,he must be expelled from our soul by violence as ,christ expelled the money changers from the temple4 ,and we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging1 and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity1 one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart4 ,if we would indeed know ,god in growing intimacy we must go this way of renunciation4 ,and if we are set upon the pursuit of ,god ,he will sooner or later bring us to this test4 ,abraham's testing was1 at the time1 not known to him as such1 yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did1 the whole history of the ,old ,testament would have been different4 ,god would have found ,his man1 no doubt1 but the loss to ,abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling4 ,so we will be brought one by one to the testing place1 and we may never know when we are there4 ,at that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us2 just one and an alternative1 but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make4 ,father1 ,i want to know ,thee1 but my coward heart fears to give up its toys4 ,i cannot part with them without inward bleeding1 and ,i do not try to hide from ,thee the terror of the parting4 ,i come trembling1 but ,i do come4 ,please root from my heart all those things which ,i have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self1 so that ,thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival4 ,then shalt ,thou make the place of ,thy feet glorious4 ,then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it1 for ,thyself wilt be the light of it1 and there shall be no night there4 ,in ,jesus' ,name1 ,amen4 ,,iii ,removing the ,veil ,having therefore1 brethren1 boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of ,jesus4--,heb4 #aj3ai ,among the famous sayings of the ,church fathers none is better known than ,augustine's1 ,thou hast formed us for ,thyself1 and our hearts are restless till they find rest in ,thee4 ,the great saint states here in few words the origin and interior history of the human race4 ,god made us for ,himself3 that is the only explanation that satisfies the heart of a thinking man1 whatever his wild reason may say4 ,should faulty education and perverse reasoning lead a man to conclude otherwise1 there is little that any ,christian can do for him4 ,for such a man ,i have no message4 ,my appeal is addressed to those who have been previously taught in secret by the wisdom of ,god2 ,i speak to thirsty hearts whose longings have been wakened by the touch of ,god within them1 and such as they need no reasoned proof4 ,their restless hearts furnish all the proof they need4 ,god formed us for ,himself4 ,the ,shorter ,catechism1 ,agreed upon by the ,reverend ,assembly of ,divines at ,westminster1 as the old ,new-,england ,primer has it1 asks the ancient questions what and why and answers them in one short sentence hardly matched in any uninspired work4 ,question3 ,what is the chief ,end of ,man8 ,answer3 ,man's chief ,end is to glorify ,god and enjoy ,him forever4 ,with this agree the four and twenty elders who fall on their faces to worship ,him that liveth for ever and ever1 saying1 ,thou art worthy1 ,o ,lord1 to receive glory and honour and power3 for thou hast created all things1 and for thy pleasure they are and were created4 ,god formed us for ,his pleasure1 and so formed us that we as well as ,he can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities4 ,he meant us to see ,him and live with ,him and draw our life from ,his smile4 ,but we have been guilty of that foul revolt of which ,milton speaks when describing the rebellion of ,satan and his hosts4 ,we have broken with ,god4 ,we have ceased to obey ,him or love ,him and in guilt and fear have fled as far as possible from ,his ,presence4 ,yet who can flee from ,his ,presence when the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain ,him8 when as the wisdom of ,solomon testifies1 the ,spirit of the ,lord filleth the world8 ,the omnipresence of the ,lord is one thing1 and is a solemn fact necessary to ,his perfection2 the manifest ,presence is another thing altogether1 and from that ,presence we have fled1 like ,adam1 to hide among the trees of the garden1 or like ,peter to shrink away crying1 ,depart from me1 for ,i am a sinful man1 ,o ,lord4 ,so the life of man upon the earth is a life away from the ,presence1 wrenched loose from that blissful center which is our right and proper dwelling place1 our first estate which we kept not1 the loss of which is the cause of our unceasing restlessness4 ,the whole work of ,god in redemption is to undo the tragic effects of that foul revolt1 and to bring us back again into right and eternal relationship with ,himself4 ,this required that our sins be disposed of satisfactorily1 that a full reconciliation be effected and the way opened for us to return again into conscious communion with ,god and to live again in the ,presence as before4 ,then by ,his prevenient working within us ,he moves us to return4 ,this first comes to our notice when our restless hearts feel a yearning for the ,presence of ,god and we say within ourselves1 ,i will arise and go to my ,father4 ,that is the first step1 and as the ,chinese sage ,lao-tze has said1 ,the journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step4 ,the interior journey of the soul from the wilds of sin into the enjoyed ,presence of ,god is beautifully illustrated in the ,old ,testament tabernacle4 ,the returning sinner first entered the outer court where he offered a blood sacrifice on the brazen altar and washed himself in the laver that stood near it4 ,then through a veil he passed into the holy place where no natural light could come1 but the golden candlestick which spoke of ,jesus the ,light of the ,world threw its soft glow over all4 ,there also was the shewbread to tell of ,jesus1 the ,bread of ,life1 and the altar of incense1 a figure of unceasing prayer4 ,though the worshipper had enjoyed so much1 still he had not yet entered the ,presence of ,god4 ,another veil separated from the ,holy of ,holies where above the mercy seat dwelt the very ,god ,himself in awful and glorious manifestation4 ,while the tabernacle stood1 only the high priest could enter there1 and that but once a year1 with blood which he offered for his sins and the sins of the people4 ,it was this last veil which was rent when our ,lord gave up the ghost on ,calvary1 and the sacred writer explains that this rending of the veil opened the way for every worshipper in the world to come by the new and living way straight into the divine ,presence4 ,everything in the ,new ,testament accords with this ,old ,testament picture4 ,ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the ,holy of ,holies4 ,god wills that we should push on into ,his ,presence and live our whole life there4 ,this is to be known to us in conscious experience4 ,it is more than a doctrine to be held1 it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day4 ,this ,flame of the ,presence was the beating heart of the ,levitical order4 ,without it all the appointments of the tabernacle were characters of some unknown language2 they had no meaning for ,israel or for us4 ,the greatest fact of the tabernacle was that ,jehovah was there2 a ,presence was waiting within the veil4 ,similarly the ,presence of ,god is the central fact of ,christianity4 ,at the heart of the ,christian message is ,god ,himself waiting for ,his redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of ,his ,presence4 ,that type of ,christianity which happens now to be the vogue knows this ,presence only in theory4 ,it fails to stress the ,christian's privilege of present realization4 ,according to its teachings we are in the ,presence of ,god positionally1 and nothing is said about the need to experience that ,presence actually4 ,the fiery urge that drove men like ,mc,cheyne is wholly missing4 ,and the present generation of ,christians measures itself by this imperfect rule4 ,ignoble contentment takes the place of burning zeal4 ,we are satisfied to rest in our judicial possessions and for the most part we bother ourselves very little about the absence of personal experience4 ,who is this within the veil who dwells in fiery manifestations8 ,it is none other than ,god ,himself1 ,one ,god the ,father ,almighty1 ,maker of heaven and earth1 and of all things visible and invisible1 and ,one ,lord ,jesus ,christ1 the only begotten ,son of ,god2 begotten of ,his ,father before all worlds1 ,god of ,god1 ,light of ,light1 ,very ,god of ,very ,god2 begotten1 not made2 being of one substance with the ,father1 and the ,holy ,ghost1 the ,lord and ,giver of life1 ,who proceedeth from the ,father and the ,son1 ,who with the ,father and the ,son together is worshipped and glorified4 ,yet this holy ,trinity is ,one ,god1 for we worship one ,god in ,trinity1 and ,trinity in ,unity2 neither confounding the ,persons1 nor dividing the ,substance4 ,for there is one ,person of the ,father1 another of the ,son1 and another of the ,holy ,ghost4 ,but the ,godhead of the ,father1 of the ,son1 and of the ,holy ,ghost1 is all one3 the glory equal and the majesty co-eternal4 ,so in part run the ancient creeds1 and so the inspired ,word declares4 ,behind the veil is ,god1 that ,god after ,whom the world1 with strange inconsistency1 has felt1 if haply they might find ,him4 ,he has discovered ,himself to some extent in nature1 but more perfectly in the ,incarnation2 now ,he waits to show ,himself in ravishing fulness to the humble of soul and the pure in heart4 ,the world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of ,god and the ,church is famishing for want of ,his ,presence4 ,the instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the ,presence in spiritual experience1 to become suddenly aware that we are in ,god and that ,god is in us4 ,this would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged4 ,this would burn away the impurities from our lives as the bugs and fungi were burned away by the fire that dwelt in the bush4 ,what a broad world to roam in1 what a sea to swim in is this ,god and ,father of our ,lord ,jesus ,christ4 ,he is eternal1 which means that ,he antedates time and is wholly independent of it4 ,time began in ,him and will end in ,him4 ,to it ,he pays no tribute and from it ,he suffers no change4 ,he is immutable1 which means that ,he has never changed and can never change in any smallest measure4 ,to change ,he would need to go from better to worse or from worse to better4 ,he cannot do either1 for being perfect ,he cannot become more perfect1 and if ,he were to become less perfect ,he would be less than ,god4 ,he is omniscient1 which means that ,he knows in one free and effortless act all matter1 all spirit1 all relationships1 all events4 ,he has no past and ,he has no future4 ,he is1 and none of the limiting and qualifying terms used of creatures can apply to ,him4 ,love and mercy and righteousness are ,his1 and holiness so ineffable that no comparisons or figures will avail to express it4 ,only fire can give even a remote conception of it4 ,in fire ,he appeared at the burning bush2 in the pillar of fire ,he dwelt through all the long wilderness journey4 ,the fire that glowed between the wings of the cherubim in the holy place was called the shekinah1 the ,presence1 through the years of ,israel's glory1 and when the ,old had given place to the ,new1 ,he came at ,pentecost as a fiery flame and rested upon each disciple4 ,spinoza wrote of the intellectual love of ,god1 and he had a measure of truth there2 but the highest love of ,god is not intellectual1 it is spiritual4 ,god is spirit and only the spirit of man can know ,him really4 ,in the deep spirit of a man the fire must glow or his love is not the true love of ,god4 ,the great of the ,kingdom have been those who loved ,god more than others did4 ,we all know who they have been and gladly pay tribute to the depths and sincerity of their devotion4 ,we have but to pause for a moment and their names come trooping past us smelling of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces4 ,frederick ,faber was one whose soul panted after ,god as the roe pants after the water brook1 and the measure in which ,god revealed ,himself to his seeking heart set the good man's whole life afire with a burning adoration rivaling that of the seraphim before the throne4 ,his love for ,god extended to the three ,persons of the ,godhead equally1 yet he seemed to feel for each ,one a special kind of love reserved for ,him alone4 ,of ,god the ,father he sings3 ,only to sit and think of ,god1 ,oh what a joy it is6 ,to think the thought1 to breathe the ,name2 ,earth has no higher bliss4 ,father of ,jesus1 love's reward6 ,what rapture will it be1 ,prostrate before ,thy throne to lie1 ,and gaze and gaze on ,thee6 ,his love for the ,person of ,christ was so intense that it threatened to consume him2 it burned within him as a sweet and holy madness and flowed from his lips like molten gold4 ,in one of his sermons he says1 ,wherever we turn in the church of ,god1 there is ,jesus4 ,he is the beginning1 middle and end of everything to us4444 ,there is nothing good1 nothing holy1 nothing beautiful1 nothing joyous which ,he is not to ,his servants4 ,no one need be poor1 because1 if he chooses1 he can have ,jesus for his own property and possession4 ,no one need be downcast1 for ,jesus is the joy of heaven1 and it is ,his joy to enter into sorrowful hearts4 ,we can exaggerate about many things2 but we can never exaggerate our obligation to ,jesus1 or the compassionate abundance of the love of ,jesus to us4 ,all our lives long we might talk of ,jesus1 and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that might be said of ,him4 ,eternity will not be long enough to learn all ,he is1 or to praise ,him for all ,he has done1 but then1 that matters not2 for we shall be always with ,him1 and we desire nothing more4 ,and addressing our ,lord directly he says to ,him3 ,i love ,thee so1 ,i know not how ,my transports to control2 ,thy love is like a burning fire ,within my very soul4 ,faber's blazing love extended also to the ,holy ,spirit4 ,not only in his theology did he acknowledge ,his deity and full equality with the ,father and the ,son1 but he celebrated it constantly in his songs and in his prayers4 ,he literally pressed his forehead to the ground in his eager fervid worship of the ,third ,person of the ,godhead4 ,in one of his great hymns to the ,holy ,spirit he sums up his burning devotion thus3 ,o ,spirit1 beautiful and dread6 ,my heart is fit to break ,with love of all ,thy tenderness ,for us poor sinners' sake4 ,i have risked the tedium of quotation that ,i might show by pointed example what ,i have set out to say1 viz41 that ,god is so vastly wonderful1 so utterly and completely delightful that ,he can1 without anything other than ,himself1 meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature1 mysterious and deep as that nature is4 ,such worship as ,faber knew 7and he is but one of a great company which no man can number7 can never come from a mere doctrinal knowledge of ,god4 ,hearts that are fit to break with love for the ,godhead are those who have been in the ,presence and have looked with opened eye upon the majesty of ,deity4 ,men of the breaking hearts had a quality about them not known to or understood by common men4 ,they habitually spoke with spiritual authority4 ,they had been in the ,presence of ,god and they reported what they saw there4 ,they were prophets1 not scribes1 for the scribe tells us what he has read1 and the prophet tells what he has seen4 ,the distinction is not an imaginary one4 ,between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea4 ,we are today overrun with orthodox scribes1 but the prophets1 where are they8 ,the hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism1 but the ,church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the ,wonder that is ,god4 ,and yet1 thus to penetrate1 to push in sensitive living experience into the holy ,presence1 is a privilege open to every child of ,god4 ,with the veil removed by the rending of ,jesus' flesh1 with nothing on ,god's side to prevent us from entering1 why do we tarry without8 ,why do we consent to abide all our days just outside the ,holy of ,holies and never enter at all to look upon ,god8 ,we hear the ,bridegroom say1 ,let me see thy countenance1 let me hear thy voice2 for sweet is thy voice and thy countenance is comely4 ,we sense that the call is for us1 but still we fail to draw near1 and the years pass and we grow old and tired in the outer courts of the tabernacle4 ,what doth hinder us8 ,the answer usually given1 simply that we are cold1 will not explain all the facts4 ,there is something more serious than coldness of heart1 something that may be back of that coldness and be the cause of its existence4 ,what is it8 ,what but the presence of a veil in our hearts8 a veil not taken away as the first veil was1 but which remains there still shutting out the light and hiding the face of ,god from us4 ,it is the veil of our fleshly fallen nature living on1 unjudged within us1 uncrucified and unrepudiated4 ,it is the close-woven veil of the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged1 of which we have been secretly ashamed1 and which for these reasons we have never brought to the judgment of the cross4 ,it is not too mysterious1 this opaque veil1 nor is it hard to identify4 ,we have but to look in our own hearts and we shall see it there1 sewn and patched and repaired it may be1 but there nevertheless1 an enemy to our lives and an effective block to our spiritual progress4 ,this veil is not a beautiful thing and it is not a thing about which we commonly care to talk1 but ,i am addressing the thirsting souls who are determined to follow ,god1 and ,i know they will not turn back because the way leads temporarily through the blackened hills4 ,the urge of ,god within them will assure their continuing the pursuit4 ,they will face the facts however unpleasant and endure the cross for the joy set before them4 ,so ,i am bold to name the threads out of which this inner veil is woven4 ,it is woven of the fine threads of the self-life1 the hyphenated sins of the human spirit4 ,they are not something we do1 they are something we are1 and therein lies both their subtlety and their power4 ,to be specific1 the self-sins are these3 self-righteousness1 self-pity1 self-confidence1 self-sufficiency1 self-admiration1 self-love and a host of others like them4 ,they dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of ,god is focused upon them4 ,the grosser manifestations of these sins1 egotism1 exhibitionism1 self-promotion1 are strangely tolerated in ,christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy4 ,they are so much in evidence as actually1 for many people1 to become identified with the gospel4 ,i trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the ,church visible4 ,promoting self under the guise of promoting ,christ is currently so common as to excite little notice4 ,one should suppose that proper instruction in the doctrines of man's depravity and the necessity for justification through the righteousness of ,christ alone would deliver us from the power of the self-sins2 but it does not work out that way4 ,self can live unrebuked at the very altar4 ,it can watch the bleeding ,victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees4 ,it can fight for the faith of the ,reformers and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace1 and gain strength by its efforts4 ,to tell all the truth1 it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy and is more at home in a ,bible ,conference than in a tavern4 ,our very state of longing after ,god may afford it an excellent condition under which to thrive and grow4 ,self is the opaque veil that hides the ,face of ,god from us4 ,it can be removed only in spiritual experience1 never by mere instruction4 ,as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system4 ,there must be a work of ,god in destruction before we are free4 ,we must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us4 ,we must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment4 ,we must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our ,saviour passed when ,he suffered under ,pontius ,pilate4 ,let us remember3 when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure1 and the thought of it is poetical1 almost pleasant2 but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it4 ,in human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue2 it is composed of the sentient1 quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist1 and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain4 ,to tear it away is to injure us1 to hurt us and make us bleed4 ,to say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all4 ,it is never fun to die4 ,to rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful4 ,yet that is what the cross did to ,jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free4 ,let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil4 ,god must do everything for us4 ,our part is to yield and trust4 ,we must confess1 forsake1 repudiate the self-life1 and then reckon it crucified4 ,but we must be careful to distinguish lazy acceptance from the real work of ,god4 ,we must insist upon the work being done4 ,we dare not rest content with a neat doctrine of self-crucifixion4 ,that is to imitate ,saul and spare the best of the sheep and the oxen4 ,insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done4 ,the cross is rough1 and it is deadly1 but it is effective4 ,it does not keep its victim hanging there forever4 ,there comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies4 ,after that is resurrection glory and power1 and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience the ,presence of the living ,god4 ,lord1 how excellent are ,thy ways1 and how devious and dark are the ways of man4 ,show us how to die1 that we may rise again to newness of life4 ,rend the veil of our self-life from the top down as ,thou didst rend the veil of the ,temple4 ,we would draw near in full assurance of faith4 ,we would dwell with ,thee in daily experience here on this earth so that we may be accustomed to the glory when we enter ,thy heaven to dwell with ,thee there4 ,in ,jesus' name1 ,amen4 ,,iv ,apprehending ,god ,o taste and see4--,psa4 #cd3h ,it was ,canon ,holmes1 of ,india1 who more than twenty-five years ago called attention to the inferential character of the average man's faith in ,god4 ,to most people ,god is an inference1 not a reality4 ,he is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate2 but ,he remains personally unknown to the individual4 ,he must be1 they say1 therefore we believe ,he is4 ,others do not go even so far as this2 they know of ,him only by hearsay4 ,they have never bothered to think the matter out for themselves1 but have heard about ,him from others1 and have put belief in ,him into the back of their minds along with the various odds and ends that make up their total creed4 ,to many others ,god is but an ideal1 another name for goodness1 or beauty1 or truth2 or ,he is law1 or life1 or the creative impulse back of the phenomena of existence4 ,these notions about ,god are many and varied1 but they who hold them have one thing in common3 they do not know ,god in personal experience4 ,the possibility of intimate acquaintance with ,him has not entered their minds4 ,while admitting ,his existence they do not think of ,him as knowable in the sense that we know things or people4 ,christians1 to be sure1 go further than this1 at least in theory4 ,their creed requires them to believe in the personality of ,god1 and they have been taught to pray1 ,our ,father1 which art in heaven4 ,now personality and fatherhood carry with them the idea of the possibility of personal acquaintance4 ,this is admitted1 ,i say1 in theory1 but for millions of ,christians1 nevertheless1 ,god is no more real than ,he is to the non-,christian4 ,they go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principle4 ,over against all this cloudy vagueness stands the clear scriptural doctrine that ,god can be known in personal experience4 ,a loving ,personality dominates the ,bible1 walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene4 ,always a living ,person is present1 speaking1 pleading1 loving1 working1 and manifesting ,himself whenever and wherever ,his people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation4 ,the ,bible assumes as a self-evident fact that men can know ,god with at least the same degree of immediacy as they know any other person or thing that comes within the field of their experience4 ,the same terms are used to express the knowledge of ,god as are used to express knowledge of physical things4 ,o taste and see that the ,lord is good4 ,all thy garments smell of myrrh1 and aloes1 and cassia1 out of the ivory palaces4 ,my sheep hear my voice4 ,blessed are the pure in heart1 for they shall see ,god4 ,these are but four of countless such passages from the ,word of ,god4 ,and more important than any proof text is the fact that the whole import of the ,scripture is toward this belief4 ,what can all this mean except that we have in our hearts organs by means of which we can know ,god as certainly as we know material things through our familiar five senses8 ,we apprehend the physical world by exercising the faculties given us for the purpose1 and we possess spiritual faculties by means of which we can know ,god and the spiritual world if we will obey the ,spirit's urge and begin to use them4 ,that a saving work must first be done in the heart is taken for granted here4 ,the spiritual faculties of the unregenerate man lie asleep in his nature1 unused and for every purpose dead2 that is the stroke which has fallen upon us by sin4 ,they may be quickened to active life again by the operation of the ,holy ,spirit in regeneration2 that is one of the immeasurable benefits which come to us through ,christ's atoning work on the cross4 ,but the very ransomed children of ,god themselves3 why do they know so little of that habitual conscious communion with ,god which the ,scriptures seem to offer8 ,the answer is our chronic unbelief4 ,faith enables our spiritual sense to function4 ,where faith is defective the result will be inward insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things4 ,this is the condition of vast numbers of ,christians today4 ,no proof is necessary to support that statement4 ,we have but to converse with the first ,christian we meet or enter the first church we find open to acquire all the proof we need4 ,a spiritual kingdom lies all about us1 enclosing us1 embracing us1 altogether within reach of our inner selves1 waiting for us to recognize it4 ,god ,himself is here waiting our response to ,his ,presence4 ,this eternal world will come alive to us the moment we begin to reckon upon its reality4 ,i have just now used two words which demand definition2 or if definition is impossible1 ,i must at least make clear what ,i mean when ,i use them4 ,they are reckon and reality4 ,what do ,i mean by reality8 ,i mean that which has existence apart from any idea any mind may have of it1 and which would exist if there were no mind anywhere to entertain a thought of it4 ,that which is real has being in itself4 ,it does not depend upon the observer for its validity4 ,i am aware that there are those who love to poke fun at the plain man's idea of reality4 ,they are the idealists who spin endless proofs that nothing is real outside of the mind4 ,they are the relativists who like to show that there are no fixed points in the universe from which we can measure anything4 ,they smile down upon us from their lofty intellectual peaks and settle us to their own satisfaction by fastening upon us the reproachful term absolutist4 ,the ,christian is not put out of countenance by this show of contempt4 ,he can smile right back at them1 for he knows that there is only ,one who is ,absolute1 that is ,god4 ,but he knows also that the ,absolute ,one has made this world for man's uses1 and1 while there is nothing fixed or real in the last meaning of the words 7the meaning as applied to ,god7 for every purpose of human life we are permitted to act as if there were4 ,and every man does act thus except the mentally sick4 ,these unfortunates also have trouble with reality1 but they are consistent2 they insist upon living in accordance with their ideas of things4 ,they are honest1 and it is their very honesty that constitutes them a social problem4 ,the idealists and relativists are not mentally sick4 ,they prove their soundness by living their lives according to the very notions of reality which they in theory repudiate and by counting upon the very fixed points which they prove are not there4 ,they could earn a lot more respect for their notions if they were willing to live by them2 but this they are careful not to do4 ,their ideas are brain-deep1 not life-deep4 ,wherever life touches them they repudiate their theories and live like other men4 ,the ,christian is too sincere to play with ideas for their own sake4 ,he takes no pleasure in the mere spinning of gossamer webs for display4 ,all his beliefs are practical4 ,they are geared into his life4 ,by them he lives or dies1 stands or falls for this world and for all time to come4 ,from the insincere man he turns away4 ,the sincere plain man knows that the world is real4 ,he finds it here when he wakes to consciousness1 and he knows that he did not think it into being4 ,it was here waiting for him when he came1 and he knows that when he prepares to leave this earthly scene it will be here still to bid him good-bye as he departs4 ,by the deep wisdom of life he is wiser than a thousand men who doubt4 ,he stands upon the earth and feels the wind and rain in his face and he knows that they are real4 ,he sees the sun by day and the stars by night4 ,he sees the hot lightning play out of the dark thundercloud4 ,he hears the sounds of nature and the cries of human joy and pain4 ,these he knows are real4 ,he lies down on the cool earth at night and has no fear that it will prove illusory or fail him while he sleeps4 ,in the morning the firm ground will be under him1 the blue sky above him and the rocks and trees around him as when he closed his eyes the night before4 ,so he lives and rejoices in a world of reality4 ,with his five senses he engages this real world4 ,all things necessary to his physical existence he apprehends by the faculties with which he has been equipped by the ,god who created him and placed him in such a world as this4 ,now1 by our definition also ,god is real4 ,he is real in the absolute and final sense that nothing else is4 ,all other reality is contingent upon ,his4 ,the great ,reality is ,god who is the ,author of that lower and dependent reality which makes up the sum of created things1 including ourselves4 ,god has objective existence independent of and apart from any notions which we may have concerning ,him4 ,the worshipping heart does not create its ,object4 ,it finds ,him here when it wakes from its moral slumber in the morning of its regeneration4 ,another word that must be cleared up is the word reckon4 ,this does not mean to visualize or imagine4 ,imagination is not faith4 ,the two are not only different from1 but stand in sharp opposition to1 each other4 ,imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them4 ,faith creates nothing2 it simply reckons upon that which is already there4 ,god and the spiritual world are real4 ,we can reckon upon them with as much assurance as we reckon upon the familiar world around us4 ,spiritual things are there 7or rather we should say here7 inviting our attention and challenging our trust4 ,our trouble is that we have established bad thought habits4 ,we habitually think of the visible world as real and doubt the reality of any other4 ,we do not deny the existence of the spiritual world but we doubt that it is real in the accepted meaning of the word4 ,the world of sense intrudes upon our attention day and night for the whole of our lifetime4 ,it is clamorous1 insistent and self-demonstrating4 ,it does not appeal to our faith2 it is here1 assaulting our five senses1 demanding to be accepted as real and final4 ,but sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality1 the ,city of ,god1 shining around us4 ,the world of sense triumphs4 ,the visible becomes the enemy of the invisible2 the temporal1 of the eternal4 ,that is the curse inherited by every member of ,adam's tragic race4 ,at the root of the ,christian life lies belief in the invisible4 ,the object of the ,christian's faith is unseen reality4 ,our uncorrected thinking1 influenced by the blindness of our natural hearts and the intrusive ubiquity of visible things1 tends to draw a contrast between the spiritual and the real2 but actually no such contrast exists4 ,the antithesis lies elsewhere3 between the real and the imaginary1 between the spiritual and the material1 between the temporal and the eternal2 but between the spiritual and the real1 never4 ,the spiritual is real4 ,if we would rise into that region of light and power plainly beckoning us through the ,scriptures of truth we must break the evil habit of ignoring the spiritual4 ,we must shift our interest from the seen to the unseen4 ,for the great unseen ,reality is ,god4 ,he that cometh to ,god must believe that he is1 and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him4 ,this is basic in the life of faith4 ,from there we can rise to unlimited heights4 ,ye believe in ,god1 said our ,lord ,jesus ,christ1 believe also in me4 ,without the first there can be no second4 ,if we truly want to follow ,god we must seek to be other-worldly4 ,this ,i say knowing well that that word has been used with scorn by the sons of this world and applied to the ,christian as a badge of reproach4 ,so be it4 ,every man must choose his world4 ,if we who follow ,christ1 with all the facts before us and knowing what we are about1 deliberately choose the ,kingdom of ,god as our sphere of interest ,i see no reason why anyone should object4 ,if we lose by it1 the loss is our own2 if we gain1 we rob no one by so doing4 ,the other world1 which is the object of this world's disdain and the subject of the drunkard's mocking song1 is our carefully chosen goal and the object of our holiest longing4 ,but we must avoid the common fault of pushing the other world into the future4 ,it is not future1 but present4 ,it parallels our familiar physical world1 and the doors between the two worlds are open4 ,ye are come1 says the writer to the ,hebrews 7and the tense is plainly present71 unto ,mount ,zion1 and unto the city of the living ,god1 the heavenly ,jerusalem1 and to an innumerable company of angels1 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn1 which are written in heaven1 and to ,god the ,judge of all1 and to the spirits of just men made perfect1 and to ,jesus the mediator of the new covenant1 and to the blood of sprinkling1 that speaketh better things than that of ,abel4 ,all these things are contrasted with the mount that might be touched and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words that might be heard4 ,may we not safely conclude that1 as the realities of ,mount ,sinai were apprehended by the senses1 so the realities of ,mount ,zion are to be grasped by the soul8 ,and this not by any trick of the imagination1 but in downright actuality4 ,the soul has eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear4 ,feeble they may be from long disuse1 but by the life-giving touch of ,christ alive now and capable of sharpest sight and most sensitive hearing4 ,as we begin to focus upon ,god the things of the spirit will take shape before our inner eyes4 ,obedience to the word of ,christ will bring an inward revelation of the ,godhead 7,john #ad3ba-bc74 ,it will give acute perception enabling us to see ,god even as is promised to the pure in heart4 ,a new ,god consciousness will seize upon us and we shall begin to taste and hear and inwardly feel the ,god who is our life and our all4 ,there will be seen the constant shining of the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world4 ,more and more1 as our faculties grow sharper and more sure1 ,god will become to us the great ,all1 and ,his ,presence the glory and wonder of our lives4 ,o ,god1 quicken to life every power within me1 that ,i may lay hold on eternal things4 ,open my eyes that ,i may see2 give me acute spiritual perception2 enable me to taste ,thee and know that ,thou art good4 ,make heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been4 ,amen4 ,v ,the ,universal ,presence ,whither shall ,i go from thy spirit8 or whither shall ,i flee from thy presence8--,psa4 #aci3g ,in all ,christian teaching certain basic truths are found1 hidden at times1 and rather assumed than asserted1 but necessary to all truth as the primary colors are found in and necessary to the finished painting4 ,such a truth is the divine immanence4 ,god dwells in ,his creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all ,his works4 ,this is boldly taught by prophet and apostle and is accepted by ,christian theology generally4 ,that is1 it appears in the books1 but for some reason it has not sunk into the average ,christian's heart so as to become a part of his believing self4 ,christian teachers shy away from its full implications1 and1 if they mention it at all1 mute it down till it has little meaning4 ,i would guess the reason for this to be the fear of being charged with pantheism2 but the doctrine of the divine ,presence is definitely not pantheism4 ,pantheism's error is too palpable to deceive anyone4 ,it is that ,god is the sum of all created things4 ,nature and ,god are one1 so that whoever touches a leaf or a stone touches ,god4 ,that is of course to degrade the glory of the incorruptible ,deity and1 in an effort to make all things divine1 banish all divinity from the world entirely4 ,the truth is that while ,god dwells in ,his world ,he is separated from it by a gulf forever impassable4 ,however closely ,he may be identified with the work of ,his hands they are and must eternally be other than ,he1 and ,he is and must be antecedent to and independent of them4 ,he is transcendent above all ,his works even while ,he is immanent within them4 ,what now does the divine immanence mean in direct ,christian experience8 ,it means simply that ,god is here4 ,wherever we are1 ,god is here4 ,there is no place1 there can be no place1 where ,he is not4 ,ten million intelligences standing at as many points in space and separated by incomprehensible distances can each one say with equal truth1 ,god is here4 ,no point is nearer to ,god than any other point4 ,it is exactly as near to ,god from any place as it is from any other place4 ,no one is in mere distance any further from or any nearer to ,god than any other person is4 ,these are truths believed by every instructed ,christian4 ,it remains for us to think on them and pray over them until they begin to glow within us4 ,in the beginning ,god4 ,not matter1 for matter is not self-causing4 ,it requires an antecedent cause1 and ,god is that ,cause4 ,not law1 for law is but a name for the course which all creation follows4 ,that course had to be planned1 and the ,planner is ,god4 ,not mind1 for mind also is a created thing and must have a ,creator back of it4 ,in the beginning ,god1 the uncaused ,cause of matter1 mind and law4 ,there we must begin4 ,adam sinned and1 in his panic1 frantically tried to do the impossible3 he tried to hide from the ,presence of ,god4 ,david also must have had wild thoughts of trying to escape from the ,presence1 for he wrote1 ,whither shall ,i go from thy spirit8 or whither shall ,i flee from thy presence8 ,then he proceeded through one of his most beautiful psalms to celebrate the glory of the divine immanence4 ,if ,i ascend up into heaven1 thou art there3 if ,i make my bed in hell1 behold1 thou art there4 ,if ,i take the wings of the morning1 and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea2 even there shall thy hand lead me1 and thy right hand shall hold me4 ,and he knew that ,god's being and ,god's seeing are the same1 that the seeing ,presence had been with him even before he was born1 watching the mystery of unfolding life4 ,solomon exclaimed1 ,but will ,god indeed dwell on the earth8 behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee3 how much less this house which ,i have builded4 ,paul assured the ,athenians that ,god is not far from any one of us3 for in him we live1 and move1 and have our being4 ,if ,god is present at every point in space1 if we cannot go where ,he is not1 cannot even conceive of a place where ,he is not1 why then has not that ,presence become the one universally celebrated fact of the world8 ,the patriarch ,jacob1 in the waste howling wilderness1 gave the answer to that question4 ,he saw a vision of ,god and cried out in wonder1 ,surely the ,lord is in this place2 and ,i knew it not4 ,jacob had never been for one small division of a moment outside the circle of that all-pervading ,presence4 ,but he knew it not4 ,that was his trouble1 and it is ours4 ,men do not know that ,god is here4 ,what a difference it would make if they knew4 ,the ,presence and the manifestation of the ,presence are not the same4 ,there can be the one without the other4 ,god is here when we are wholly unaware of it4 ,he is manifest only when and as we are aware of ,his ,presence4 ,on our part there must be surrender to the ,spirit of ,god1 for ,his work it is to show us the ,father and the ,son4 ,if we co-operate with ,him in loving obedience ,god will manifest ,himself to us1 and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal ,christian life and a life radiant with the light of ,his face4 ,always1 everywhere ,god is present1 and always ,he seeks to discover ,himself4 ,to each one he would reveal not only that ,he is1 but what ,he is as well4 ,he did not have to be persuaded to discover ,himself to ,moses4 ,and the ,lord descended in the cloud1 and stood with him there1 and proclaimed the name of the ,lord4 ,he not only made a verbal proclamation of ,his nature but ,he revealed ,his very ,self to ,moses so that the skin of ,moses' face shone with the supernatural light4 ,it will be a great moment for some of us when we begin to believe that ,god's promise of self-revelation is literally true3 that ,he promised much1 but promised no more than ,he intends to fulfill4 ,our pursuit of ,god is successful just because ,he is forever seeking to manifest ,himself to us4 ,the revelation of ,god to any man is not ,god coming from a distance upon a time to pay a brief and momentous visit to the man's soul4 ,thus to think of it is to misunderstand it all4 ,the approach of ,god to the soul or of the soul to ,god is not to be thought of in spatial terms at all4 ,there is no idea of physical distance involved in the concept4 ,it is not a matter of miles but of experience4 ,to speak of being near to or far from ,god is to use language in a sense always understood when applied to our ordinary human relationships4 ,a man may say1 ,i feel that my son is coming nearer to me as he gets older1 and yet that son has lived by his father's side since he was born and has never been away from home more than a day or so in his entire life4 ,what then can the father mean8 ,obviously he is speaking of experience4 ,he means that the boy is coming to know him more intimately and with deeper understanding1 that the barriers of thought and feeling between the two are disappearing1 that father and son are becoming more closely united in mind and heart4 ,so when we sing1 ,draw me nearer1 nearer1 blessed ,lord1 we are not thinking of the nearness of place1 but of the nearness of relationship4 ,it is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray1 for a more perfect consciousness of the divine ,presence4 ,we need never shout across the spaces to an absent ,god4 ,he is nearer than our own soul1 closer than our most secret thoughts4 ,why do some persons find ,god in a way that others do not8 ,why does ,god manifest ,his ,presence to some and let multitudes of others struggle along in the half-light of imperfect ,christian experience8 ,of course the will of ,god is the same for all4 ,he has no favorites within ,his household4 ,all ,he has ever done for any of ,his children ,he will do for all of ,his children4 ,the difference lies not with ,god but with us4 ,pick at random a score of great saints whose lives and testimonies are widely known4 ,let them be ,bible characters or well known ,christians of post-,biblical times4 ,you will be struck instantly with the fact that the saints were not alike4 ,sometimes the unlikenesses were so great as to be positively glaring4 ,how different for example was ,moses from ,isaiah2 how different was ,elijah from ,david2 how unlike each other were ,john and ,paul1 ,st4 ,francis and ,luther1 ,finney and ,thomas a ,kempis4 ,the differences are as wide as human life itself3 differences of race1 nationality1 education1 temperament1 habit and personal qualities4 ,yet they all walked1 each in his day1 upon a high road of spiritual living far above the common way4 ,their differences must have been incidental and in the eyes of ,god of no significance4 ,in some vital quality they must have been alike4 ,what was it8 ,i venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they had in common was spiritual receptivity4 ,something in them was open to heaven1 something which urged them ,godward4 ,without attempting anything like a profound analysis ,i shall say simply that they had spiritual awareness and that they went on to cultivate it until it became the biggest thing in their lives4 ,they differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it4 ,they acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response4 ,they were not disobedient to the heavenly vision4 ,as ,david put it neatly1 ,when thou saidst1 ,seek ye my face2 my heart said unto thee1 ,thy face1 ,lord1 will ,i seek4 ,as with everything good in human life1 back of this receptivity is ,god4 ,the sovereignty of ,god is here1 and is felt even by those who have not placed particular stress upon it theologically4 ,the pious ,michael ,angelo confessed this in a sonnet3 ,my unassisted heart is barren clay1 ,that of its native self can nothing feed3 ,of good and pious works ,thou art the seed1 ,that quickens only where ,thou sayest it may3 ,unless ,thou show to us ,thine own true way ,no man can find it3 ,father6 ,thou must lead4 ,these words will repay study as the deep and serious testimony of a great ,christian4 ,important as it is that we recognize ,god working in us1 ,i would yet warn against a too-great preoccupation with the thought4 ,it is a sure road to sterile passivity4 ,god will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election1 predestination and the divine sovereignty4 ,the best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to ,god and in deepest reverence say1 ,o ,lord1 ,thou knowest4 ,those things belong to the deep and mysterious ,profound of ,god's omniscience4 ,prying into them may make theologians1 but it will never make saints4 ,receptivity is not a single thing2 it is a compound rather1 a blending of several elements within the soul4 ,it is an affinity for1 a bent toward1 a sympathetic response to1 a desire to have4 ,from this it may be gathered that it can be present in degrees1 that we may have little or more or less1 depending upon the individual4 ,it may be increased by exercise or destroyed by neglect4 ,it is not a sovereign and irresistible force which comes upon us as a seizure from above4 ,it is a gift of ,god1 indeed1 but one which must be recognized and cultivated as any other gift if it is to realize the purpose for which it was given4 ,failure to see this is the cause of a very serious breakdown in modern evangelicalism4 ,the idea of cultivation and exercise1 so dear to the saints of old1 has now no place in our total religious picture4 ,it is too slow1 too common4 ,we now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action4 ,a generation of ,christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals4 ,we have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with ,god4 ,we read our chapter1 have our short devotions and rush away1 hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar4 ,the tragic results of this spirit are all about us4 ,shallow lives1 hollow religious philosophies1 the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings1 the glorification of men1 trust in religious externalities1 quasi-religious fellowships1 salesmanship methods1 the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the ,spirit3 these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease1 a deep and serious malady of the soul4 ,for this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible1 and no ,christian is wholly free from blame4 ,we have all contributed1 directly or indirectly1 to this sad state of affairs4 ,we have been too blind to see1 or too timid to speak out1 or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied4 ,to put it differently1 we have accepted one another's notions1 copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own4 ,and for a generation the trend has been downward4 ,now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and1 worst of all1 we have made the ,word of ,truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed4 ,it will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to ,biblical ways4 ,but it can be done4 ,every now and then in the past ,christians have had to do it4 ,history has recorded several large-scale returns led by such men as ,st4 ,francis1 ,martin ,luther and ,george ,fox4 ,unfortunately there seems to be no ,luther or ,fox on the horizon at present4 ,whether or not another such return may be expected before the coming of ,christ is a question upon which ,christians are not fully agreed1 but that is not of too great importance to us now4 ,what ,god in ,his sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale ,i do not claim to know3 but what ,he will do for the plain man or woman who seeks ,his face ,i believe ,i do know and can tell others4 ,let any man turn to ,god in earnest1 let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness1 let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility1 and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days4 ,any man who by repentance and a sincere return to ,god will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held1 and will go to the ,bible itself for his spiritual standards1 will be delighted with what he finds there4 ,let us say it again3 ,the ,universal ,presence is a fact4 ,god is here4 ,the whole universe is alive with ,his life4 ,and ,he is no strange or foreign ,god1 but the familiar ,father of our ,lord ,jesus ,christ whose love has for these thousands of years enfolded the sinful race of men4 ,and always ,he is trying to get our attention1 to reveal ,himself to us1 to communicate with us4 ,we have within us the ability to know ,him if we will but respond to ,his overtures4 7,and this we call pursuing ,god67 ,we will know ,him in increasing degree as our receptivity becomes more perfect by faith and love and practice4 ,o ,god and ,father1 ,i repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things4 ,the world has been too much with me4 ,thou hast been here and ,i knew it not4 ,i have been blind to ,thy ,presence4 ,open my eyes that ,i may behold ,thee in and around me4 ,for ,christ's sake1 ,amen4 ,,vi ,the ,speaking ,voice ,in the beginning was the ,word1 and the ,word was with ,god1 and the ,word was ,god4--,john #a3a ,an intelligent plain man1 untaught in the truths of ,christianity1 coming upon this text1 would likely conclude that ,john meant to teach that it is the nature of ,god to speak1 to communicate ,his thoughts to others4 ,and he would be right4 ,a word is a medium by which thoughts are expressed1 and the application of term to the ,eternal ,son leads us to believe that self-expression is inherent in the ,godhead1 that ,god is forever seeking to speak ,himself out to ,his creation4 ,the whole ,bible supports the idea4 ,god is speaking4 ,not ,god spoke1 but ,god is speaking4 ,he is by ,his nature continuously articulate4 ,he fills the world with ,his speaking ,voice4 ,one of the great realities with which we have to deal is the ,voice of ,god in ,his world4 ,the briefest and only satisfying cosmogony is this3 ,he spake and it was done4 ,the why of natural law is the living ,voice of ,god immanent in ,his creation4 ,and this word of ,god which brought all worlds into being cannot be understood to mean the ,bible1 for it is not a written or printed word at all1 but the expression of the will of ,god spoken into the structure of all things4 ,this word of ,god is the breath of ,god filling the world with living potentiality4 ,the ,voice of ,god is the most powerful force in nature1 indeed the only force in nature1 for all energy is here only because the power-filled ,word is being spoken4 ,the ,bible is the written word of ,god1 and because it is written it is confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather4 ,the ,voice of ,god1 however1 is alive and free as the sovereign ,god is free4 ,the words that ,i speak unto you1 they are spirit1 and they are life4 ,the life is in the speaking words4 ,god's word in the ,bible can have power only because it corresponds to ,god's word in the universe4 ,it is the present ,voice which makes the written ,word all-powerful4 ,otherwise it would lie locked in slumber within the covers of a book4 ,we take a low and primitive view of things when we conceive of ,god at the creation coming into physical contact with things1 shaping and fitting and building like a carpenter4 ,the ,bible teaches otherwise3 ,by the word of the ,lord were the heavens made2 and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth4444 ,for he spake1 and it was done2 he commanded1 and it stood fast4 ,through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of ,god4 ,again we must remember that ,god is referring here not to ,his written ,word1 but to ,his speaking ,voice4 ,his world-filling ,voice is meant1 that ,voice which antedates the ,bible by uncounted centuries1 that ,voice which has not been silent since the dawn of creation1 but is sounding still throughout the full far reaches of the universe4 ,the ,word of ,god is quick and powerful4 ,in the beginning ,he spoke to nothing1 and it became something4 ,chaos heard it and became order1 darkness heard it and became light4 ,and ,god said--and it was so4 ,these twin phrases1 as cause and effect1 occur throughout the ,genesis story of the creation4 ,the said accounts for the so4 ,the so is the said put into the continuous present4 ,that ,god is here and that ,he is speaking--these truths are back of all other ,bible truths2 without them there could be no revelation at all4 ,god did not write a book and send it by messenger to be read at a distance by unaided minds4 ,he spoke a ,book and lives in ,his spoken words1 constantly speaking ,his words and causing the power of them to persist across the years4 ,god breathed on clay and it became a man2 ,he breathes on men and they become clay4 ,return ye children of men was the word spoken at the ,fall by which ,god decreed the death of every man1 and no added word has ,he needed to speak4 ,the sad procession of mankind across the face of the earth from birth to the grave is proof that ,his original ,word was enough4 ,we have not given sufficient attention to that deep utterance in the ,book of ,john1 ,that was the true ,light1 which lighteth every man that cometh into the world4 ,shift the punctuation around as we will and the truth is still there3 the ,word of ,god affects the hearts of all men as light in the soul4 ,in the hearts of all men the light shines1 the ,word sounds1 and there is no escaping them4 ,something like this would of necessity be so if ,god is alive and in ,his world4 ,and ,john says that it is so4 ,even those persons who have never heard of the ,bible have still been preached to with sufficient clarity to remove every excuse from their hearts forever4 ,which show the work of the law written in their hearts1 their conscience also bearing witness1 and their thoughts the mean while either accusing or else excusing one another4 ,for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen1 being understood by the things that are made1 even his eternal power and ,godhead2 so that they are without excuse4 ,this universal ,voice of ,god was by the ancient ,hebrews often called ,wisdom1 and was said to be everywhere sounding and searching throughout the earth1 seeking some response from the sons of men4 ,the eighth chapter of the ,book of ,proverbs begins1 ,doth not wisdom cry8 and understanding put forth her voice8 ,the writer then pictures wisdom as a beautiful woman standing in the top of the high places1 by the way in the places of the paths4 ,she sounds her voice from every quarter so that no one may miss hearing it4 ,unto you1 ,o men1 ,i call2 and my voice is to the sons of men4 ,then she pleads for the simple and the foolish to give ear to her words4 ,it is spiritual response for which this ,wisdom of ,god is pleading1 a response which she has always sought and is but rarely able to secure4 ,the tragedy is that our eternal welfare depends upon our hearing1 and we have trained our ears not to hear4 ,this universal ,voice has ever sounded1 and it has often troubled men even when they did not understand the source of their fears4 ,could it be that this ,voice distilling like a living mist upon the hearts of men has been the undiscovered cause of the troubled conscience and the longing for immortality confessed by millions since the dawn of recorded history8 ,we need not fear to face up to this4 ,the speaking ,voice is a fact4 ,how men have reacted to it is for any observer to note4 ,when ,god spoke out of heaven to our ,lord1 self-centered men who heard it explained it by natural causes3 they said1 ,it thundered4 ,this habit of explaining the ,voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science4 ,in the living breathing cosmos there is a mysterious ,something1 too wonderful1 too awful for any mind to understand4 ,the believing man does not claim to understand4 ,he falls to his knees and whispers1 ,god4 ,the man of earth kneels also1 but not to worship4 ,he kneels to examine1 to search1 to find the cause and the how of things4 ,just now we happen to be living in a secular age4 ,our thought habits are those of the scientist1 not those of the worshipper4 ,we are more likely to explain than to adore4 ,it thundered1 we exclaim1 and go our earthly way4 ,but still the ,voice sounds and searches4 ,the order and life of the world depend upon that ,voice1 but men are mostly too busy or too stubborn to give attention4 ,everyone of us has had experiences which we have not been able to explain3 a sudden sense of loneliness1 or a feeling of wonder or awe in the face of the universal vastness4 ,or we have had a fleeting visitation of light like an illumination from some other sun1 giving us in a quick flash an assurance that we are from another world1 that our origins are divine4 ,what we saw there1 or felt1 or heard1 may have been contrary to all that we had been taught in the schools and at wide variance with all our former beliefs and opinions4 ,we were forced to suspend our acquired doubts while1 for a moment1 the clouds were rolled back and we saw and heard for ourselves4 ,explain such things as we will1 ,i think we have not been fair to the facts until we allow at least the possibility that such experiences may arise from the ,presence of ,god in the world and ,his persistent effort to communicate with mankind4 ,let us not dismiss such an hypothesis too flippantly4 ,it is my own belief 7and here ,i shall not feel bad if no one follows me7 that every good and beautiful thing which man has produced in the world has been the result of his faulty and sin-blocked response to the creative ,voice sounding over the earth4 ,the moral philosophers who dreamed their high dreams of virtue1 the religious thinkers who speculated about ,god and immortality1 the poets and artists who created out of common stuff pure and lasting beauty3 how can we explain them8 ,it is not enough to say simply1 ,it was genius4 ,what then is genius8 ,could it be that a genius is a man haunted by the speaking ,voice1 laboring and striving like one possessed to achieve ends which he only vaguely understands8 ,that the great man may have missed ,god in his labors1 that he may even have spoken or written against ,god does not destroy the idea ,i am advancing4 ,god's redemptive revelation in the ,holy ,scriptures is necessary to saving faith and peace with ,god4 ,faith in a risen ,saviour is necessary if the vague stirrings toward immortality are to bring us to restful and satisfying communion with ,god4 ,to me this is a plausible explanation of all that is best out of ,christ4 ,but you can be a good ,christian and not accept my thesis4 ,the ,voice of ,god is a friendly ,voice4 ,no one need fear to listen to it unless he has already made up his mind to resist it4 ,the blood of ,jesus has covered not only the human race but all creation as well4 ,and having made peace through the blood of his cross1 by him to reconcile all things unto himself2 by him1 ,i say1 whether they be things in earth1 or things in heaven4 ,we may safely preach a friendly ,heaven4 ,the heavens as well as the earth are filled with the good will of ,him that dwelt in the bush4 ,the perfect blood of atonement secures this forever4 ,whoever will listen will hear the speaking ,heaven4 ,this is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen1 for listening is not today a part of popular religion4 ,we are at the opposite end of the pole from there4 ,religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise1 size1 activity and bluster make a man dear to ,god4 ,but we may take heart4 ,to a people caught in the tempest of the last great conflict ,god says1 ,be still1 and know that ,i am ,god1 and still ,he says it1 as if ,he means to tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence4 ,it is important that we get still to wait on ,god4 ,and it is best that we get alone1 preferably with our ,bible outspread before us4 ,then if we will we may draw near to ,god and begin to hear ,him speak to us in our hearts4 ,i think for the average person the progression will be something like this3 ,first a sound as of a ,presence walking in the garden4 ,then a voice1 more intelligible1 but still far from clear4 ,then the happy moment when the ,spirit begins to illuminate the ,scriptures1 and that which had been only a sound1 or at best a voice1 now becomes an intelligible word1 warm and intimate and clear as the word of a dear friend4 ,then will come life and light1 and best of all1 ability to see and rest in and embrace ,jesus ,christ as ,saviour and ,lord and ,all4 ,the ,bible will never be a living ,book to us until we are convinced that ,god is articulate in ,his universe4 ,to jump from a dead1 impersonal world to a dogmatic ,bible is too much for most people4 ,they may admit that they should accept the ,bible as the ,word of ,god1 and they may try to think of it as such1 but they find it impossible to believe that the words there on the page are actually for them4 ,a man may say1 ,these words are addressed to me1 and yet in his heart not feel and know that they are4 ,he is the victim of a divided psychology4 ,he tries to think of ,god as mute everywhere else and vocal only in a book4 ,i believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the ,scriptures of ,truth4 ,a silent ,god suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever4 ,now we read the book as the record of what ,god said when ,he was for a brief time in a speaking mood4 ,with notions like that in our heads how can we believe8 ,the facts are that ,god is not silent1 has never been silent4 ,it is the nature of ,god to speak4 ,the second ,person of the ,holy ,trinity is called the ,word4 ,the ,bible is the inevitable outcome of ,god's continuous speech4 ,it is the infallible declaration of ,his mind for us put into our familiar human words4 ,i think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our ,bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken1 but a book which is now speaking4 ,the prophets habitually said1 ,thus saith the ,lord4 ,they meant their hearers to understand that ,god's speaking is in the continuous present4 ,we may use the past tense properly to indicate that at a certain time a certain word of ,god was spoken1 but a word of ,god once spoken continues to be spoken1 as a child once born continues to be alive1 or a world once created continues to exist4 ,and those are but imperfect illustrations1 for children die and worlds burn out1 but the ,word of our ,god endureth forever4 ,if you would follow on to know the ,lord1 come at once to the open ,bible expecting it to speak to you4 ,do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience4 ,it is more than a thing1 it is a voice1 a word1 the very ,word of the living ,god4 ,lord1 teach me to listen4 ,the times are noisy and my ears are weary with the thousand raucous sounds which continuously assault them4 ,give me the spirit of the boy ,samuel when he said to ,thee1 ,speak1 for thy servant heareth4 ,let me hear ,thee speaking in my heart4 ,let me get used to the sound of ,thy ,voice1 that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of ,thy speaking ,voice4 ,amen4 ,,vii ,the ,gaze of the ,soul ,looking unto ,jesus the author and finisher of our faith4--,heb4 #ab3b ,let us think of our intelligent plain man mentioned in chapter six coming for the first time to the reading of the ,scriptures4 ,he approaches the ,bible without any previous knowledge of what it contains4 ,he is wholly without prejudice2 he has nothing to prove and nothing to defend4 ,such a man will not have read long until his mind begins to observe certain truths standing out from the page4 ,they are the spiritual principles behind the record of ,god's dealings with men1 and woven into the writings of holy men as they were moved by the ,holy ,ghost4 ,as he reads on he might want to number these truths as they become clear to him and make a brief summary under each number4 ,these summaries will be the tenets of his ,biblical creed4 ,further reading will not affect these points except to enlarge and strengthen them4 ,our man is finding out what the ,bible actually teaches4 ,high up on the list of things which the ,bible teaches will be the doctrine of faith4 ,the place of weighty importance which the ,bible gives to faith will be too plain for him to miss4 ,he will very likely conclude3 ,faith is all-important in the life of the soul4 ,without faith it is impossible to please ,god4 ,faith will get me anything1 take me anywhere in the ,kingdom of ,god1 but without faith there can be no approach to ,god1 no forgiveness1 no deliverance1 no salvation1 no communion1 no spiritual life at all4 ,by the time our friend has reached the eleventh chapter of ,hebrews the eloquent encomium which is there pronounced upon faith will not seem strange to him4 ,he will have read ,paul's powerful defense of faith in his ,roman and ,galatian epistles4 ,later if he goes on to study church history he will understand the amazing power in the teachings of the ,reformers as they showed the central place of faith in the ,christian religion4 ,now if faith is so vitally important1 if it is an indispensable must in our pursuit of ,god1 it is perfectly natural that we should be deeply concerned over whether or not we possess this most precious gift4 ,and our minds being what they are1 it is inevitable that sooner or later we should get around to inquiring after the nature of faith4 ,what is faith8 would lie close to the question1 ,do ,i have faith8 and would demand an answer if it were anywhere to be found4 ,almost all who preach or write on the subject of faith have much the same things to say concerning it4 ,they tell us that it is believing a promise1 that it is taking ,god at ,his word1 that it is reckoning the ,bible to be true and stepping out upon it4 ,the rest of the book or sermon is usually taken up with stories of persons who have had their prayers answered as a result of their faith4 ,these answers are mostly direct gifts of a practical and temporal nature such as health1 money1 physical protection or success in business4 ,or if the teacher is of a philosophic turn of mind he may take another course and lose us in a welter of metaphysics or snow us under with psychological jargon as he defines and re-defines1 paring the slender hair of faith thinner and thinner till it disappears in gossamer shavings at last4 ,when he is finished we get up disappointed and go out by that same door where in we went4 ,surely there must be something better than this4 ,in the ,scriptures there is practically no effort made to define faith4 ,outside of a brief fourteen-word definition in ,hebrews #aa3a1 ,i know of no ,biblical definition1 and even there faith is defined functionally1 not philosophically2 that is1 it is a statement of what faith is in operation1 not what it is in essence4 ,it assumes the presence of faith and shows what it results in1 rather than what it is4 ,we will be wise to go just that far and attempt to go no further4 ,we are told from whence it comes and by what means3 ,faith is a gift of ,god1 and ,faith cometh by hearing1 and hearing by the word of ,god4 ,this much is clear1 and1 to paraphrase ,thomas a ,kempis1 ,i had rather exercise faith than know the definition thereof4 ,from here on1 when the words faith is or their equivalent occur in this chapter ,i ask that they be understood to refer to what faith is in operation as exercised by a believing man4 ,right here we drop the notion of definition and think about faith as it may be experienced in action4 ,the complexion of our thoughts will be practical1 not theoretical4 ,in a dramatic story in the ,book of ,numbers faith is seen in action4 ,israel became discouraged and spoke against ,god1 and the ,lord sent fiery serpents among them4 ,and they bit the people2 and much people of ,israel died4 ,then ,moses sought the ,lord for them and ,he heard and gave them a remedy against the bite of the serpents4 ,he commanded ,moses to make a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole in sight of all the people1 and it shall come to pass1 that everyone that is bitten1 when he looketh upon it1 shall live4 ,moses obeyed1 and it came to pass1 that if a serpent had bitten any man1 when he beheld the serpent of brass1 he lived 7,num4 #ba3d-i74 ,in the ,new ,testament this important bit of history is interpreted for us by no less an authority than our ,lord ,jesus ,christ ,himself4 ,he is explaining to ,his hearers how they may be saved4 ,he tells them that it is by believing4 ,then to make it clear ,he refers to this incident in the ,book of ,numbers4 ,as ,moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness1 even so must the ,son of man be lifted up3 that whosoever believeth in him should not perish1 but have eternal life 7,john #c3ad-ae74 ,our plain man in reading this would make an important discovery4 ,he would notice that look and believe were synonymous terms4 ,looking on the ,old ,testament serpent is identical with believing on the ,new ,testament ,christ4 ,that is1 the looking and the believing are the same thing4 ,and he would understand that while ,israel looked with their external eyes1 believing is done with the heart4 ,i think he would conclude that faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving ,god4 ,when he had seen this he would remember passages he had read before1 and their meaning would come flooding over him4 ,they looked unto him1 and were lightened3 and their faces were not ashamed 7,psa4 #cd3e74 ,unto thee lift ,i up mine eyes1 ,o thou that dwellest in the heavens4 ,behold1 as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters1 and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress2 so our eyes wait upon the ,lord our ,god1 until that he have mercy upon us 7,psa4 #abc3a-b74 ,here the man seeking mercy looks straight at the ,god of mercy and never takes his eyes away from ,him till mercy is granted4 ,and our ,lord ,himself looked always at ,god4 ,looking up to heaven1 he blessed1 and brake1 and gave the bread to his disciples 7,matt4 #ad3ai74 ,indeed ,jesus taught that ,he wrought ,his works by always keeping ,his inward eyes upon ,his ,father4 ,his power lay in ,his continuous look at ,god 7,john #e3ai-ba74 ,in full accord with the few texts we have quoted is the whole tenor of the inspired ,word4 ,it is summed up for us in the ,hebrew epistle when we are instructed to run life's race looking unto ,jesus the author and finisher of our faith4 ,from all this we learn that faith is not a once-done act1 but a continuous gaze of the heart at the ,triune ,god4 ,believing1 then1 is directing the heart's attention to ,jesus4 ,it is lifting the mind to behold the ,lamb of ,god1 and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives4 ,at first this may be difficult1 but it becomes easier as we look steadily at ,his wondrous ,person1 quietly and without strain4 ,distractions may hinder1 but once the heart is committed to ,him1 after each brief excursion away from ,him the attention will return again and rest upon ,him like a wandering bird coming back to its window4 ,i would emphasize this one committal1 this one great volitional act which establishes the heart's intention to gaze forever upon ,jesus4 ,god takes this intention for our choice and makes what allowances ,he must for the thousand distractions which beset us in this evil world4 ,he knows that we have set the direction of our hearts toward ,jesus1 and we can know it too1 and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that a habit of soul is forming which will become after a while a sort of spiritual reflex requiring no more conscious effort on our part4 ,faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues4 ,it is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence4 ,like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself1 faith is occupied with the ,object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all4 ,while we are looking at ,god we do not see ourselves--blessed riddance4 ,the man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect ,one4 ,while he looks at ,christ the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him4 ,it will be ,god working in him to will and to do4 ,faith is not in itself a meritorious act2 the merit is in the ,one toward ,whom it is directed4 ,faith is a redirecting of our sight1 a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting ,god into focus4 ,sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding4 ,unbelief has put self where ,god should be1 and is perilously close to the sin of ,lucifer who said1 ,i will set my throne above the throne of ,god4 ,faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line4 ,all this may seem too simple4 ,but we have no apology to make4 ,to those who would seek to climb into heaven after help or descend into hell ,god says1 ,the word is nigh thee1 even the word of faith4 ,the word induces us to lift up our eyes unto the ,lord and the blessed work of faith begins4 ,when we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon ,god we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us1 for it is written that the eyes of the ,lord run to and fro throughout all the earth4 ,the sweet language of experience is ,thou ,god seest me4 ,when the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of ,god looking in1 heaven has begun right here on this earth4 ,when all my endeavour is turned toward ,thee because all ,thy endeavour is turned toward me2 when ,i look unto ,thee alone with all my attention1 nor ever turn aside the eyes of my mind1 because ,thou dost enfold me with ,thy constant regard2 when ,i direct my love toward ,thee alone because ,thou1 who art ,love's self hast turned ,thee toward me alone4 ,and what1 ,lord1 is my life1 save that embrace wherein ,thy delightsome sweetness doth so lovingly enfold me8#a ,so wrote ,nicholas of ,cusa four hundred years ago4 ,i should like to say more about this old man of ,god4 ,he is not much known today anywhere among ,christian believers1 and among current ,fundamentalists he is known not at all4 ,i feel that we could gain much from a little acquaintance with men of his spiritual flavor and the school of ,christian thought which they represent4 ,christian literature1 to be accepted and approved by the evangelical leaders of our times1 must follow very closely the same train of thought1 a kind of party line from which it is scarcely safe to depart4 ,a half-century of this in ,america has made us smug and content4 ,we imitate each other with slavish devotion and our most strenuous efforts are put forth to try to say the same thing that everyone around us is saying--and yet to find an excuse for saying it1 some little safe variation on the approved theme or1 if no more1 at least a new illustration4 ,nicholas was a true follower of ,christ1 a lover of the ,lord1 radiant and shining in his devotion to the ,person of ,jesus4 ,his theology was orthodox1 but fragrant and sweet as everything about ,jesus might properly be expected to be4 ,his conception of eternal life1 for instance1 is beautiful in itself and1 if ,i mistake not1 is nearer in spirit to ,john #ag3c than that which is current among us today4 ,life eternal1 says ,nicholas1 is nought other than that blessed regard wherewith ,thou never ceasest to behold me1 yea1 even the secret places of my soul4 ,with ,thee1 to behold is to give life2 'tis unceasingly to impart sweetest love of ,thee2 'tis to inflame me to love of ,thee by love's imparting1 and to feed me by inflaming1 and by feeding to kindle my yearning1 and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness1 and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life1 and by infusing to make it increase and endure4#b ,now1 if faith is the gaze of the heart at ,god1 and if this gaze is but the raising of the inward eyes to meet the all-seeing eyes of ,god1 then it follows that it is one of the easiest things possible to do4 ,it would be like ,god to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us4 ,several conclusions may fairly be drawn from all this4 ,the simplicity of it1 for instance4 ,since believing is looking1 it can be done without special equipment or religious paraphernalia4 ,god has seen to it that the one life-and-death essential can never be subject to the caprice of accident4 ,equipment can break down or get lost1 water can leak away1 records can be destroyed by fire1 the minister can be delayed or the church burn down4 ,all these are external to the soul and are subject to accident or mechanical failure3 but looking is of the heart and can be done successfully by any man standing up or kneeling down or lying in his last agony a thousand miles from any church4 ,since believing is looking it can be done any time4 ,no season is superior to another season for this sweetest of all acts4 ,god never made salvation depend upon new moons nor holy days or sabbaths4 ,a man is not nearer to ,christ on ,easter ,sunday than he is1 say1 on ,saturday1 ,august #c1 or ,monday1 ,october #d4 ,as long as ,christ sits on the mediatorial throne every day is a good day and all days are days of salvation4 ,neither does place matter in this blessed work of believing ,god4 ,lift your heart and let it rest upon ,jesus and you are instantly in a sanctuary though it be a ,pullman berth or a factory or a kitchen4 ,you can see ,god from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey ,him4 ,now1 someone may ask1 ,is not this of which you speak for special persons such as monks or ministers who have by the nature of their calling more time to devote to quiet meditation8 ,i am a busy worker and have little time to spend alone4 ,i am happy to say that the life ,i describe is for everyone of ,god's children regardless of calling4 ,it is1 in fact1 happily practiced every day by many hard working persons and is beyond the reach of none4 ,many have found the secret of which ,i speak and1 without giving much thought to what is going on within them1 constantly practice this habit of inwardly gazing upon ,god4 ,they know that something inside their hearts sees ,god4 ,even when they are compelled to withdraw their conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs there is within them a secret communion always going on4 ,let their attention but be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to ,god again4 ,this has been the testimony of many ,christians1 so many that even as ,i state it thus ,i have a feeling that ,i am quoting1 though from whom or from how many ,i cannot possibly know4 ,i do not want to leave the impression that the ordinary means of grace have no value4 ,they most assuredly have4 ,private prayer should be practiced by every ,christian4 ,long periods of ,bible meditation will purify our gaze and direct it2 church attendance will enlarge our outlook and increase our love for others4 ,service and work and activity2 all are good and should be engaged in by every ,christian4 ,but at the bottom of all these things1 giving meaning to them1 will be the inward habit of beholding ,god4 ,a new set of eyes 7so to speak7 will develop within us enabling us to be looking at ,god while our outward eyes are seeing the scenes of this passing world4 ,someone may fear that we are magnifying private religion out of all proportion1 that the us of the ,new ,testament is being displaced by a selfish ,i4 ,has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other8 ,they are of one accord by being tuned1 not to each other1 but to another standard to which each one must individually bow4 ,so one hundred worshippers met together1 each one looking away to ,christ1 are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become unity conscious and turn their eyes away from ,god to strive for closer fellowship4 ,social religion is perfected when private religion is purified4 ,the body becomes stronger as its members become healthier4 ,the whole ,church of ,god gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life4 ,all the foregoing presupposes true repentance and a full committal of the life to ,god4 ,it is hardly necessary to mention this1 for only persons who have made such a committal will have read this far4 ,when the habit of inwardly gazing ,godward becomes fixed within us we shall be ushered onto a new level of spiritual life more in keeping with the promises of ,god and the mood of the ,new ,testament4 ,the ,triune ,god will be our dwelling place even while our feet walk the low road of simple duty here among men4 ,we will have found life's summum bonum indeed4 ,there is the source of all delights that can be desired2 not only can nought better be thought out by men and angels1 but nought better can exist in mode of being6 ,for it is the absolute maximum of every rational desire1 than which a greater cannot be4#c ,o ,lord1 ,i have heard a good word inviting me to look away to ,thee and be satisfied4 ,my heart longs to respond1 but sin has clouded my vision till ,i see ,thee but dimly4 ,be pleased to cleanse me in ,thine own precious blood1 and make me inwardly pure1 so that ,i may with unveiled eyes gaze upon ,thee all the days of my earthly pilgrimage4 ,then shall ,i be prepared to behold ,thee in full splendor in the day when ,thou shalt appear to be glorified in ,thy saints and admired in all them that believe4 ,amen4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,nicholas of ,cusa1 ,the ,vision of ,god1 ,e4 ,p4 ,dutton ,co41 ,inc41 ,new ,york1 #aibh4 ,this and the following quotations used by kind permission of the publishers4 #b ,the ,vision of ,god #c ,the ,vision of ,god ,,viii ,restoring the ,creator-creature ,relation ,be thou exalted1 ,o ,god1 above the heavens2 let thy glory be above all the earth4--,psa4 #eg3e ,it is a truism to say that order in nature depends upon right relationships2 to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper position relative to each other thing4 ,in human life it is not otherwise4 ,i have hinted before in these chapters that the cause of all our human miseries is a radical moral dislocation1 an upset in our relation to ,god and to each other4 ,for whatever else the ,fall may have been1 it was most certainly a sharp change in man's relation to his ,creator4 ,he adopted toward ,god an altered attitude1 and by so doing destroyed the proper ,creator-creature relation in which1 unknown to him1 his true happiness lay4 ,essentially salvation is the restoration of a right relation between man and his ,creator1 a bringing back to normal of the ,creator-creature relation4 ,a satisfactory spiritual life will begin with a complete change in relation between ,god and the sinner2 not a judicial change merely1 but a conscious and experienced change affecting the sinner's whole nature4 ,the atonement in ,jesus' blood makes such a change judicially possible and the working of the ,holy ,spirit makes it emotionally satisfying4 ,the story of the prodigal son perfectly illustrates this latter phase4 ,he had brought a world of trouble upon himself by forsaking the position which he had properly held as son of his father4 ,at bottom his restoration was nothing more than a re-establishing of the father-son relation which had existed from his birth and had been altered temporarily by his act of sinful rebellion4 ,this story overlooks the legal aspects of redemption1 but it makes beautifully clear the experiential aspects of salvation4 ,in determining relationships we must begin somewhere4 ,there must be somewhere a fixed center against which everything else is measured1 where the law of relativity does not enter and we can say ,,is and make no allowances4 ,such a center is ,god4 ,when ,god would make ,his ,name known to mankind ,he could find no better word than ,i ,,am4 ,when ,he speaks in the first person ,he says1 ,i ,,am2 when we speak of ,him we say1 ,he is2 when we speak to ,him we say1 ,thou art4 ,everyone and everything else measures from that fixed point4 ,i am that ,i am1 says ,god1 ,i change not4 ,as the sailor locates his position on the sea by shooting the sun1 so we may get our moral bearings by looking at ,god4 ,we must begin with ,god4 ,we are right when and only when we stand in a right position relative to ,god1 and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other position4 ,much of our difficulty as seeking ,christians stems from our unwillingness to take ,god as ,he is and adjust our lives accordingly4 ,we insist upon trying to modify ,him and to bring ,him nearer to our own image4 ,the flesh whimpers against the rigor of ,god's inexorable sentence and begs like ,agag for a little mercy1 a little indulgence of its carnal ways4 ,it is no use4 ,we can get a right start only by accepting ,god as ,he is and learning to love ,him for what ,he is4 ,as we go on to know ,him better we shall find it a source of unspeakable joy that ,god is just what ,he is4 ,some of the most rapturous moments we know will be those we spend in reverent admiration of the ,godhead4 ,in those holy moments the very thought of change in ,him will be too painful to endure4 ,so let us begin with ,god4 ,back of all1 above all1 before all is ,god2 first in sequential order1 above in rank and station1 exalted in dignity and honor4 ,as the self-existent ,one ,he gave being to all things1 and all things exist out of ,him and for ,him4 ,thou art worthy1 ,o ,lord1 to receive glory and honour and power3 for thou hast created all things1 and for thy pleasure they are and were created4 ,every soul belongs to ,god and exists by ,his pleasure4 ,god being ,who and ,what ,he is1 and we being who and what we are1 the only thinkable relation between us is one of full lordship on ,his part and complete submission on ours4 ,we owe ,him every honor that it is in our power to give ,him4 ,our everlasting grief lies in giving ,him anything less4 ,the pursuit of ,god will embrace the labor of bringing our total personality into conformity to ,his4 ,and this not judicially1 but actually4 ,i do not here refer to the act of justification by faith in ,christ4 ,i speak of a voluntary exalting of ,god to ,his proper station over us and a willing surrender of our whole being to the place of worshipful submission which the ,creator-creature circumstance makes proper4 ,the moment we make up our minds that we are going on with this determination to exalt ,god over all we step out of the world's parade4 ,we shall find ourselves out of adjustment to the ways of the world1 and increasingly so as we make progress in the holy way4 ,we shall acquire a new viewpoint2 a new and different psychology will be formed within us2 a new power will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its outgoings4 ,our break with the world will be the direct outcome of our changed relation to ,god4 ,for the world of fallen men does not honor ,god4 ,millions call themselves by ,his ,name1 it is true1 and pay some token respect to ,him1 but a simple test will show how little ,he is really honored among them4 ,let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who is above1 and his true position will be exposed4 ,let him be forced into making a choice between ,god and money1 between ,god and men1 between ,god and personal ambition1 ,god and self1 ,god and human love1 and ,god will take second place every time4 ,those other things will be exalted above4 ,however the man may protest1 the proof is in the choices he makes day after day throughout his life4 ,be thou exalted is the language of victorious spiritual experience4 ,it is a little key to unlock the door to great treasures of grace4 ,it is central in the life of ,god in the soul4 ,let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips join to say continually ,be thou exalted1 and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once4 ,his ,christian life ceases to be the complicated thing it had been before and becomes the very essence of simplicity4 ,by the exercise of his will he has set his course1 and on that course he will stay as if guided by an automatic pilot4 ,if blown off course for a moment by some adverse wind he will surely return again as by a secret bent of the soul4 ,the hidden motions of the ,spirit are working in his favor1 and the stars in their courses fight for him4 ,he has met his life problem at its center1 and everything else must follow along4 ,let no one imagine that he will lose anything of human dignity by this voluntary sell-out of his all to his ,god4 ,he does not by this degrade himself as a man2 rather he finds his right place of high honor as one made in the image of his ,creator4 ,his deep disgrace lay in his moral derangement1 his unnatural usurpation of the place of ,god4 ,his honor will be proved by restoring again that stolen throne4 ,in exalting ,god over all he finds his own highest honor upheld4 ,anyone who might feel reluctant to surrender his will to the will of another should remember ,jesus' words1 ,whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin4 ,we must of necessity be servant to someone1 either to ,god or to sin4 ,the sinner prides himself on his independence1 completely overlooking the fact that he is the weak slave of the sins that rule his members4 ,the man who surrenders to ,christ exchanges a cruel slave driver for a kind and gentle ,master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light4 ,made as we were in the image of ,god we scarcely find it strange to take again our ,god as our ,all4 ,god was our original habitat and our hearts cannot but feel at home when they enter again that ancient and beautiful abode4 ,i hope it is clear that there is a logic behind ,god's claim to pre-eminence4 ,that place is ,his by every right in earth or heaven4 ,while we take to ourselves the place that is ,his the whole course of our lives is out of joint4 ,nothing will or can restore order till our hearts make the great decision3 ,god shall be exalted above4 ,them that honour me ,i will honour1 said ,god once to a priest of ,israel1 and that ancient law of the ,kingdom stands today unchanged by the passing of time or the changes of dispensation4 ,the whole ,bible and every page of history proclaim the perpetuation of that law4 ,if any man serve me1 him will my ,father honour1 said our ,lord ,jesus1 tying in the old with the new and revealing the essential unity of ,his ways with men4 ,sometimes the best way to see a thing is to look at its opposite4 ,eli and his sons are placed in the priesthood with the stipulation that they honor ,god in their lives and ministrations4 ,this they fail to do1 and ,god sends ,samuel to announce the consequences4 ,unknown to ,eli this law of reciprocal honor has been all the while secretly working1 and now the time has come for judgment to fall4 ,hophni and ,phineas1 the degenerate priests1 fall in battle1 the wife of ,hophni dies in childbirth1 ,israel flees before her enemies1 the ark of ,god is captured by the ,philistines and the old man ,eli falls backward and dies of a broken neck4 ,thus stark utter tragedy followed upon ,eli's failure to honor ,god4 ,now set over against this almost any ,bible character who honestly tried to glorify ,god in his earthly walk4 ,see how ,god winked at weaknesses and overlooked failures as ,he poured upon ,his servants grace and blessing untold4 ,let it be ,abraham1 ,jacob1 ,david1 ,daniel1 ,elijah or whom you will2 honor followed honor as harvest the seed4 ,the man of ,god set his heart to exalt ,god above all2 ,god accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly4 ,not perfection1 but holy intention made the difference4 ,in our ,lord ,jesus ,christ this law was seen in simple perfection4 ,in ,his lowly manhood ,he humbled ,himself and gladly gave all glory to ,his ,father in heaven4 ,he sought not ,his own honor1 but the honor of ,god who sent ,him4 ,if ,i honour myself1 ,he said on one occasion1 my honour is nothing2 it is my ,father that honoureth me4 ,so far had the proud ,pharisees departed from this law that they could not understand one who honored ,god at his own expense4 ,i honour my ,father1 said ,jesus to them1 and ye do dishonour me4 ,another saying of ,jesus1 and a most disturbing one1 was put in the form of a question1 ,how can ye believe1 which receive honour one of another1 and seek not the honour that cometh from ,god alone8 ,if ,i understand this correctly ,christ taught here the alarming doctrine that the desire for honor among men made belief impossible4 ,is this sin at the root of religious unbelief8 ,could it be that those intellectual difficulties which men blame for their inability to believe are but smoke screens to conceal the real cause that lies behind them8 ,was it this greedy desire for honor from man that made men into ,pharisees and ,pharisees into ,deicides8 ,is this the secret back of religious self-righteousness and empty worship8 ,i believe it may be4 ,the whole course of the life is upset by failure to put ,god where ,he belongs4 ,we exalt ourselves instead of ,god and the curse follows4 ,in our desire after ,god let us keep always in mind that ,god also hath desire1 and ,his desire is toward the sons of men1 and more particularly toward those sons of men who will make the once-for-all decision to exalt ,him over all4 ,such as these are precious to ,god above all treasures of earth or sea4 ,in them ,god finds a theater where ,he can display ,his exceeding kindness toward us in ,christ ,jesus4 ,with them ,god can walk unhindered1 toward them ,he can act like the ,god ,he is4 ,in speaking thus ,i have one fear2 it is that ,i may convince the mind before ,god can win the heart4 ,for this ,god-above-all position is one not easy to take4 ,the mind may approve it while not having the consent of the will to put it into effect4 ,while the imagination races ahead to honor ,god1 the will may lag behind and the man never guess how divided his heart is4 ,the whole man must make the decision before the heart can know any real satisfaction4 ,god wants us all1 and ,he will not rest till ,he gets us all4 ,no part of the man will do4 ,let us pray over this in detail1 throwing ourselves at ,god's feet and meaning everything we say4 ,no one who prays thus in sincerity need wait long for tokens of divine acceptance4 ,god will unveil ,his glory before ,his servant's eyes1 and ,he will place all ,his treasures at the disposal of such a one1 for ,he knows that ,his honor is safe in such consecrated hands4 ,o ,god1 be ,thou exalted over my possessions4 ,nothing of earth's treasures shall seem dear unto me if only ,thou art glorified in my life4 ,be ,thou exalted over my friendships4 ,i am determined that ,thou shalt be above all1 though ,i must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth4 ,be ,thou exalted above my comforts4 ,though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses ,i shall keep my vow made this day before ,thee4 ,be ,thou exalted over my reputation4 ,make me ambitious to please ,thee even if as a result ,i must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream4 ,rise1 ,o ,lord1 into ,thy proper place of honor1 above my ambitions1 above my likes and dislikes1 above my family1 my health and even my life itself4 ,let me decrease that ,thou mayest increase1 let me sink that ,thou mayest rise above4 ,ride forth upon me as ,thou didst ride into ,jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast1 a colt1 the foal of an ass1 and let me hear the children cry to ,thee1 ,hosanna in the highest4 ,,ix ,meekness and ,rest ,blessed are the meek3 for they shall inherit the earth4--,matt4 #e3e ,a fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished one unacquainted with it by taking the ,beatitudes1 turning them wrong side out and saying1 ,here is your human race4 ,for the exact opposite of the virtues in the ,beatitudes are the very qualities which distinguish human life and conduct4 ,in the world of men we find nothing approaching the virtues of which ,jesus spoke in the opening words of the famous ,sermon on the ,mount4 ,instead of poverty of spirit we find the rankest kind of pride2 instead of mourners we find pleasure seekers2 instead of meekness1 arrogance2 instead of hunger after righteousness we hear men saying1 ,i am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing2 instead of mercy we find cruelty2 instead of purity of heart1 corrupt imaginings2 instead of peacemakers we find men quarrelsome and resentful2 instead of rejoicing in mistreatment we find them fighting back with every weapon at their command4 ,of this kind of moral stuff civilized society is composed4 ,the atmosphere is charged with it2 we breathe it with every breath and drink it with our mother's milk4 ,culture and education refine these things slightly but leave them basically untouched4 ,a whole world of literature has been created to justify this kind of life as the only normal one4 ,and this is the more to be wondered at seeing that these are the evils which make life the bitter struggle it is for all of us4 ,all our heartaches and a great many of our physical ills spring directly out of our sins4 ,pride1 arrogance1 resentfulness1 evil imaginings1 malice1 greed3 these are the sources of more human pain than all the diseases that ever afflicted mortal flesh4 ,into a world like this the sound of ,jesus' words comes wonderful and strange1 a visitation from above4 ,it is well that ,he spoke1 for no one else could have done it as well2 and it is good that we listen4 ,his words are the essence of truth4 ,he is not offering an opinion2 ,jesus never uttered opinions4 ,he never guessed2 ,he knew1 and ,he knows4 ,his words are not as ,solomon's were1 the sum of sound wisdom or the results of keen observation4 ,he spoke out of the fulness of ,his ,godhead1 and ,his words are very ,truth itself4 ,he is the only one who could say blessed with complete authority1 for ,he is the ,blessed ,one come from the world above to confer blessedness upon mankind4 ,and ,his words were supported by deeds mightier than any performed on this earth by any other man4 ,it is wisdom for us to listen4 ,as was often so with ,jesus1 ,he used this word meek in a brief crisp sentence1 and not till some time later did ,he go on to explain it4 ,in the same book of ,matthew ,he tells us more about it and applies it to our lives4 ,come unto me1 all ye that labour and are heavy laden1 and ,i will give you rest4 ,take my yoke upon you1 and learn of me2 for ,i am meek and lowly in heart3 and ye shall find rest unto your souls4 ,for my yoke is easy1 and my burden is light4 ,here we have two things standing in contrast to each other1 a burden and a rest4 ,the burden is not a local one1 peculiar to those first hearers1 but one which is borne by the whole human race4 ,it consists not of political oppression or poverty or hard work4 ,it is far deeper than that4 ,it is felt by the rich as well as the poor for it is something from which wealth and idleness can never deliver us4 ,the burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing4 ,the word ,jesus used means a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion4 ,rest is simply release from that burden4 ,it is not something we do1 it is what comes to us when we cease to do4 ,his own meekness1 that is the rest4 ,let us examine our burden4 ,it is altogether an interior one4 ,it attacks the heart and the mind and reaches the body only from within4 ,first1 there is the burden of pride4 ,the labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed4 ,think for yourself whether much of your sorrow has not arisen from someone speaking slightingly of you4 ,as long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol4 ,how then can you hope to have inward peace8 ,the heart's fierce effort to protect itself from every slight1 to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy1 will never let the mind have rest4 ,continue this fight through the years and the burden will become intolerable4 ,yet the sons of earth are carrying this burden continually1 challenging every word spoken against them1 cringing under every criticism1 smarting under each fancied slight1 tossing sleepless if another is preferred before them4 ,such a burden as this is not necessary to bear4 ,jesus calls us to ,his rest1 and meekness is ,his method4 ,the meek man cares not at all who is greater than he1 for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort4 ,he develops toward himself a kindly sense of humor and learns to say1 ,oh1 so you have been overlooked8 ,they have placed someone else before you8 ,they have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all8 ,and now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself8 ,only yesterday you were telling ,god that you were nothing1 a mere worm of the dust4 ,where is your consistency8 ,come on1 humble yourself1 and cease to care what men think4 ,the meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority4 ,rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as ,samson2 but he has stopped being fooled about himself4 ,he has accepted ,god's estimate of his own life4 ,he knows he is as weak and helpless as ,god has declared him to be1 but paradoxically1 he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of ,god of more importance than angels4 ,in himself1 nothing2 in ,god1 everything4 ,that is his motto4 ,he knows well that the world will never see him as ,god sees him and he has stopped caring4 ,he rests perfectly content to allow ,god to place ,his own values4 ,he will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own4 ,then the righteous shall shine forth in the ,kingdom of their ,father4 ,he is willing to wait for that day4 ,in the meantime he will have attained a place of soul rest4 ,as he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let ,god defend him4 ,the old struggle to defend himself is over4 ,he has found the peace which meekness brings4 ,then also he will get deliverance from the burden of pretense4 ,by this ,i mean not hypocrisy1 but the common human desire to put the best foot forward and hide from the world our real inward poverty4 ,for sin has played many evil tricks upon us1 and one has been the infusing into us a false sense of shame4 ,there is hardly a man or woman who dares to be just what he or she is without doctoring up the impression4 ,the fear of being found out gnaws like rodents within their hearts4 ,the man of culture is haunted by the fear that he will some day come upon a man more cultured than himself4 ,the learned man fears to meet a man more learned than he4 ,the rich man sweats under the fear that his clothes or his car or his house will sometime be made to look cheap by comparison with those of another rich man4 ,so-called society runs by a motivation not higher than this1 and the poorer classes on their level are little better4 ,let no one smile this off4 ,these burdens are real1 and little by little they kill the victims of this evil and unnatural way of life4 ,and the psychology created by years of this kind of thing makes true meekness seem as unreal as a dream1 as aloof as a star4 ,to all the victims of the gnawing disease ,jesus says1 ,ye must become as little children4 ,for little children do not compare2 they receive direct enjoyment from what they have without relating it to something else or someone else4 ,only as they get older and sin begins to stir within their hearts do jealousy and envy appear4 ,then they are unable to enjoy what they have if someone else has something larger or better4 ,at that early age does the galling burden come down upon their tender souls1 and it never leaves them till ,jesus sets them free4 ,another source of burden is artificiality4 ,i am sure that most people live in secret fear that some day they will be careless and by chance an enemy or friend will be allowed to peep into their poor empty souls4 ,so they are never relaxed4 ,bright people are tense and alert in fear that they may be trapped into saying something common or stupid4 ,traveled people are afraid that they may meet some ,marco ,polo who is able to describe some remote place where they have never been4 ,this unnatural condition is part of our sad heritage of sin1 but in our day it is aggravated by our whole way of life4 ,advertising is largely based upon this habit of pretense4 ,courses are offered in this or that field of human learning frankly appealing to the victim's desire to shine at a party4 ,books are sold1 clothes and cosmetics are peddled1 by playing continually upon this desire to appear what we are not4 ,artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we kneel at ,jesus' feet and surrender ourselves to ,his meekness4 ,then we will not care what people think of us so long as ,god is pleased4 ,then what we are will be everything2 what we appear will take its place far down the scale of interest for us4 ,apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed4 ,only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are4 ,the heart of the world is breaking under this load of pride and pretense4 ,there is no release from our burden apart from the meekness of ,christ4 ,good keen reasoning may help slightly1 but so strong is this vice that if we push it down one place it will come up somewhere else4 ,to men and women everywhere ,jesus says1 ,come unto me1 and ,i will give you rest4 ,the rest ,he offers is the rest of meekness1 the blessed relief which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend4 ,it will take some courage at first1 but the needed grace will come as we learn that we are sharing this new and easy yoke with the strong ,son of ,god ,himself4 ,he calls it my yoke1 and ,he walks at one end while we walk at the other4 ,lord1 make me childlike4 ,deliver me from the urge to compete with another for place or prestige or position4 ,i would be simple and artless as a little child4 ,deliver me from pose and pretense4 ,forgive me for thinking of myself4 ,help me to forget myself and find my true peace in beholding ,thee4 ,that ,thou mayest answer this prayer ,i humble myself before ,thee4 ,lay upon me ,thy easy yoke of self-forgetfulness that through it ,i may find rest4 ,amen4 ,x ,the ,sacrament of ,living ,whether therefore ye eat1 or drink1 or whatsoever ye do1 do all to the glory of ,god4--,i ,cor4 #aj3ca ,one of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the ,christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas1 the sacred and the secular4 ,as these areas are conceived to exist apart from each other and to be morally and spiritually incompatible1 and as we are compelled by the necessities of living to be always crossing back and forth from the one to the other1 our inner lives tend to break up so that we live a divided instead of a unified life4 ,our trouble springs from the fact that we who follow ,christ inhabit at once two worlds1 the spiritual and the natural4 ,as children of ,adam we live our lives on earth subject to the limitations of the flesh and the weaknesses and ills to which human nature is heir4 ,merely to live among men requires of us years of hard toil and much care and attention to the things of this world4 ,in sharp contrast to this is our life in the ,spirit4 ,there we enjoy another and higher kind of life2 we are children of ,god2 we possess heavenly status and enjoy intimate fellowship with ,christ4 ,this tends to divide our total life into two departments4 ,we come unconsciously to recognize two sets of actions4 ,the first are performed with a feeling of satisfaction and a firm assurance that they are pleasing to ,god4 ,these are the sacred acts and they are usually thought to be prayer1 ,bible reading1 hymn singing1 church attendance and such other acts as spring directly from faith4 ,they may be known by the fact that they have no direct relation to this world1 and would have no meaning whatever except as faith shows us another world1 an house not made with hands1 eternal in the heavens4 ,over against these sacred acts are the secular ones4 ,they include all of the ordinary activities of life which we share with the sons and daughters of ,adam3 eating1 sleeping1 working1 looking after the needs of the body and performing our dull and prosaic duties here on earth4 ,these we often do reluctantly and with many misgivings1 often apologizing to ,god for what we consider a waste of time and strength4 ,the upshot of this is that we are uneasy most of the time4 ,we go about our common tasks with a feeling of deep frustration1 telling ourselves pensively that there's a better day coming when we shall slough off this earthly shell and be bothered no more with the affairs of this world4 ,this is the old sacred-secular antithesis4 ,most ,christians are caught in its trap4 ,they cannot get a satisfactory adjustment between the claims of the two worlds4 ,they try to walk the tight rope between two kingdoms and they find no peace in either4 ,their strength is reduced1 their outlook confused and their joy taken from them4 ,i believe this state of affairs to be wholly unnecessary4 ,we have gotten ourselves on the horns of a dilemma1 true enough1 but the dilemma is not real4 ,it is a creature of misunderstanding4 ,the sacred-secular antithesis has no foundation in the ,new ,testament4 ,without doubt a more perfect understanding of ,christian truth will deliver us from it4 ,the ,lord ,jesus ,christ ,himself is our perfect example1 and ,he knew no divided life4 ,in the ,presence of ,his ,father ,he lived on earth without strain from babyhood to ,his death on the cross4 ,god accepted the offering of ,his total life1 and made no distinction between act and act4 ,i do always the things that please him1 was ,his brief summary of ,his own life as it related to the ,father4 ,as ,he moved among men ,he was poised and restful4 ,what pressure and suffering ,he endured grew out of ,his position as the world's sin bearer2 they were never the result of moral uncertainty or spiritual maladjustment4 ,paul's exhortation to do all to the glory of ,god is more than pious idealism4 ,it is an integral part of the sacred revelation and is to be accepted as the very ,word of ,truth4 ,it opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of ,god4 ,lest we should be too timid to include everything1 ,paul mentions specifically eating and drinking4 ,this humble privilege we share with the beasts that perish4 ,if these lowly animal acts can be so performed as to honor ,god1 then it becomes difficult to conceive of one that cannot4 ,that monkish hatred of the body which figures so prominently in the works of certain early devotional writers is wholly without support in the ,word of ,god4 ,common modesty is found in the ,sacred ,scriptures1 it is true1 but never prudery or a false sense of shame4 ,the ,new ,testament accepts as a matter of course that in ,his incarnation our ,lord took upon ,him a real human body1 and no effort is made to steer around the downright implications of such a fact4 ,he lived in that body here among men and never once performed a non-sacred act4 ,his presence in human flesh sweeps away forever the evil notion that there is about the human body something innately offensive to the ,deity4 ,god created our bodies1 and we do not offend ,him by placing the responsibility where it belongs4 ,he is not ashamed of the work of ,his own hands4 ,perversion1 misuse and abuse of our human powers should give us cause enough to be ashamed4 ,bodily acts done in sin and contrary to nature can never honor ,god4 ,wherever the human will introduces moral evil we have no longer our innocent and harmless powers as ,god made them2 we have instead an abused and twisted thing which can never bring glory to its ,creator4 ,let us1 however1 assume that perversion and abuse are not present4 ,let us think of a ,christian believer in whose life the twin wonders of repentance and the new birth have been wrought4 ,he is now living according to the will of ,god as he understands it from the written ,word4 ,of such a one it may be said that every act of his life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer or baptism or the ,lord's ,supper4 ,to say this is not to bring all acts down to one dead level2 it is rather to lift every act up into a living kingdom and turn the whole life into a sacrament4 ,if a sacrament is an external expression of an inward grace than we need not hesitate to accept the above thesis4 ,by one act of consecration of our total selves to ,god we can make every subsequent act express that consecration4 ,we need no more be ashamed of our body--the fleshly servant that carries us through life--than ,jesus was of the humble beast upon which ,he rode into ,jerusalem4 ,the ,lord hath need of him may well apply to our mortal bodies4 ,if ,christ dwells in us we may bear about the ,lord of glory as the little beast did of old and give occasion to the multitudes to cry1 ,hosanna in the highest4 ,that we see this truth is not enough4 ,if we would escape from the toils of the sacred-secular dilemma the truth must run in our blood and condition the complexion of our thoughts4 ,we must practice living to the glory of ,god1 actually and determinedly4 ,by meditation upon this truth1 by talking it over with ,god often in our prayers1 by recalling it to our minds frequently as we move about among men1 a sense of its wondrous meaning will begin to take hold of us4 ,the old painful duality will go down before a restful unity of life4 ,the knowledge that we are all ,god's1 that ,he has received all and rejected nothing1 will unify our inner lives and make everything sacred to us4 ,this is not quite all4 ,long-held habits do not die easily4 ,it will take intelligent thought and a great deal of reverent prayer to escape completely from the sacred-secular psychology4 ,for instance it may be difficult for the average ,christian to get hold of the idea that his daily labors can be performed as acts of worship acceptable to ,god by ,jesus ,christ4 ,the old antithesis will crop up in the back of his head sometimes to disturb his peace of mind4 ,nor will that old serpent the devil take all this lying down4 ,he will be there in the cab or at the desk or in the field to remind the ,christian that he is giving the better part of his day to the things of this world and allotting to his religious duties only a trifling portion of his time4 ,and unless great care is taken this will create confusion and bring discouragement and heaviness of heart4 ,we can meet this successfully only by the exercise of an aggressive faith4 ,we must offer all our acts to ,god and believe that ,he accepts them4 ,then hold firmly to that position and keep insisting that every act of every hour of the day and night be included in the transaction4 ,keep reminding ,god in our times of private prayer that we mean every act for ,his glory2 then supplement those times by a thousand thought-prayers as we go about the job of living4 ,let us practice the fine art of making every work a priestly ministration4 ,let us believe that ,god is in all our simple deeds and learn to find ,him there4 ,a concomitant of the error which we have been discussing is the sacred-secular antithesis as applied to places4 ,it is little short of astonishing that we can read the ,new ,testament and still believe in the inherent sacredness of places as distinguished from other places4 ,this error is so widespread that one feels all alone when he tries to combat it4 ,it has acted as a kind of dye to color the thinking of religious persons and has colored the eyes as well so that it is all but impossible to detect its fallacy4 ,in the face of every ,new ,testament teaching to the contrary it has been said and sung throughout the centuries and accepted as a part of the ,christian message1 the which it most surely is not4 ,only the ,quakers1 so far as my knowledge goes1 have had the perception to see the error and the courage to expose it4 ,here are the facts as ,i see them4 ,for four hundred years ,israel had dwelt in ,egypt1 surrounded by the crassest idolatry4 ,by the hand of ,moses they were brought out at last and started toward the land of promise4 ,the very idea of holiness had been lost to them4 ,to correct this1 ,god began at the bottom4 ,he localized ,himself in the cloud and fire and later when the tabernacle had been built ,he dwelt in fiery manifestation in the ,holy of ,holies4 ,by innumerable distinctions ,god taught ,israel the difference between holy and unholy4 ,there were holy days1 holy vessels1 holy garments4 ,there were washings1 sacrifices1 offerings of many kinds4 ,by these means ,israel learned that ,god is holy4 ,it was this that ,he was teaching them4 ,not the holiness of things or places1 but the holiness of ,jehovah was the lesson they must learn4 ,then came the great day when ,christ appeared4 ,immediately ,he began to say1 ,ye have heard that it was said by them of old time--but ,i say unto you4 ,the ,old ,testament schooling was over4 ,when ,christ died on the cross the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom4 ,the ,holy of ,holies was opened to everyone who would enter in faith4 ,christ's words were remembered1 ,the hour cometh1 when ye shall neither in this mountain1 nor yet at ,jerusalem1 worship the ,father4444 ,but the hour cometh1 and now is1 when the true worshippers shall worship the ,father in spirit and in truth3 for the ,father seeketh such to worship ,him4 ,god is ,spirit1 and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth4 ,shortly after1 ,paul took up the cry of liberty and declared all meats clean1 every day holy1 all places sacred and every act acceptable to ,god4 ,the sacredness of times and places1 a half-light necessary to the education of the race1 passed away before the full sun of spiritual worship4 ,the essential spirituality of worship remained the possession of the ,church until it was slowly lost with the passing of the years4 ,then the natural legality of the fallen hearts of men began to introduce the old distinctions4 ,the ,church came to observe again days and seasons and times4 ,certain places were chosen and marked out as holy in a special sense4 ,differences were observed between one and another day or place or person1 ,the sacraments were first two1 then three1 then four until with the triumph of ,romanism they were fixed at seven4 ,in all charity1 and with no desire to reflect unkindly upon any ,christian1 however misled1 ,i would point out that the ,roman ,catholic church represents today the sacred-secular heresy carried to its logical conclusion4 ,its deadliest effect is the complete cleavage it introduces between religion and life4 ,its teachers attempt to avoid this snare by many footnotes and multitudinous explanations1 but the mind's instinct for logic is too strong4 ,in practical living the cleavage is a fact4 ,from this bondage reformers and puritans and mystics have labored to free us4 ,today the trend in conservative circles is back toward that bondage again4 ,it is said that a horse after it has been led out of a burning building will sometimes by a strange obstinacy break loose from its rescuer and dash back into the building again to perish in the flame4 ,by some such stubborn tendency toward error ,fundamentalism in our day is moving back toward spiritual slavery4 ,the observation of days and times is becoming more and more prominent among us4 ,lent and holy week and good ,friday are words heard more and more frequently upon the lips of gospel ,christians4 ,we do not know when we are well off4 ,in order that ,i may be understood and not be misunderstood ,i would throw into relief the practical implications of the teaching for which ,i have been arguing1 i4e41 the sacramental quality of every day living4 ,over against its positive meanings ,i should like to point out a few things it does not mean4 ,it does not mean1 for instance1 that everything we do is of equal importance with everything else we do or may do4 ,one act of a good man's life may differ widely from another in importance4 ,paul's sewing of tents was not equal to his writing of an ,epistle to the ,romans1 but both were accepted of ,god and both were true acts of worship4 ,certainly it is more important to lead a soul to ,christ than to plant a garden1 but the planting of the garden can be as holy an act as the winning of a soul4 ,again1 it does not mean that every man is as useful as every other man4 ,gifts differ in the body of ,christ4 ,a ,billy ,bray is not to be compared with a ,luther or a ,wesley for sheer usefulness to the ,church and to the world2 but the service of the less gifted brother is as pure as that of the more gifted1 and ,god accepts both with equal pleasure4 ,the layman need never think of his humbler task as being inferior to that of his minister4 ,let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry4 ,it is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular1 it is why he does it4 ,the motive is everything4 ,let a man sanctify the ,lord ,god in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act4 ,all he does is good and acceptable to ,god through ,jesus ,christ4 ,for such a man1 living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary4 ,his entire life will be a priestly ministration4 ,as he performs his never so simple task he will hear the voice of the seraphim saying1 ,holy1 ,holy1 ,holy1 is the ,lord of hosts3 the whole earth is full of his glory4 ,lord1 ,i would trust ,thee completely2 ,i would be altogether ,thine2 ,i would exalt ,thee above all4 ,i desire that ,i may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of ,thee4 ,i want constantly to be aware of ,thy overshadowing ,presence and to hear ,thy speaking ,voice4 ,i long to live in restful sincerity of heart4 ,i want to live so fully in the ,spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to ,thee and every act of my life may be an act of worship4 ,therefore ,i pray in the words of ,thy great servant of old1 ,i beseech ,thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of ,thy grace1 that ,i may perfectly love ,thee and worthily praise ,thee4 ,and all this ,i confidently believe ,thou wilt grant me through the merits of ,jesus ,christ ,thy ,son4 ,amen4