Lecture 2 - A Spiritual View  Of History
by Arthur A. Oakman

No Man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece  of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea,  Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of  thy friends or of thy own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am  involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;  it tolls for thee. (John Donne, Devotions XVII)

I was reminded of this piece of literature from John Donne,  when a man with whom I was acquainted passed away at the Independence Sanitarium  on Sunday night, and I saw his body being wheeled down the hall. It seemed to me  as if a bit of myself had gone with him. I think this illustrates what I tried  to say last night, so ineffectively I feel. And that is that all of us are  connected to a sea of consciousness which we all share. No man is an island, we  belong to each other. We have been fashioned and created of a piece by our  Heavenly Father and creation is part of His nature. To create. Creativity is the  manifestation of the Divine. And He has manifested and created the universe and  in it He has placed us. We talked briefly last night about a spiritual  interpretation of the universe and now we must talk tonight as to how the Spirit  views the course of time and the doings of men. As you must know this will be  brief, I mean it will be a cursory survey, but I hope it will indicate some  principles which will be of help to you in your ministry and in your personal  life.

God created man in His own image, and that means that He endowed  him with creativity too. Endowed him with creativity in the hope that what man  creates might be offered to Him. We stand at a peculiar place in history. We  teeter on a knife edge, between universal brotherhood and extinction. Wendall  Wilkie wrote a book sometime ago called, "One World or None" and in that title  is the terrible alternative which faces us. It is impossible for me to over  emphasize the fact that every mans history is involved in my personal history.  What was done in England in 1588 has helped produce me. And gentlemen, this is a  truth which is so relevant to our time, that we must see it clearly. We are  involved in the course of time, and we are involved in the lives of other  people, we cannot escape it. Whether we recognize this or not, it is a fact, and  what the Holy Spirit does is to make us aware of the facts of life, to uncover  our eyes and make us see clearly the relationships in which we are involved with  our fellow men. And all down the stream of time this has been true. We apprehend  history of course through the written word, through the traditions that have  come to us in our country. Every one of us has a different point of view, and a  different background. I assure you as my friend, Brother Davies here, can  verify, that the "American War for independence" looked very much different in  the British history books than it did in the American history books. We were  told over there, that the reason We, that's a capital W you see. The historian  teaches the little children to say "We", lost our colonies, was because of bad  weather, because if ever the British army was defeated, only God could do it,  but when I came over here, there was a man named George Washington involved. The  only thing we heard about George Washington was that he would sooner chop down  forty cherry trees than tell a fib. But I suspect the truth lay between them,  that both God and George Washington had something to do with it.

When I was a boy in school, the little green history book  told us that in 54 BC Julius Ceasar invaded our shores. Well, in 54 BC I was in  the loins of somebody in Mesopotamia, I did not have any country. I well  remember so vividly standing with Brother Alfred Urban in Brandenberg, one  beautiful Sunday morning in 1939 just a few weeks before war was declared. And I  heard in the distance, singing, beautiful singing, male voices, all in four  parts, and I listened. It was a marshal song the men were singing. And as we  listened, they came down the street marching four abreast singing this song. Wir  Fahren Gegen England, "We march against England." I said to my friend, " I don't  like that song." I was English although I wasn’t British, I was a citizen of the  United States, although not quite yet an American. I said, "I don't like that  song, why are they singing it?" "Well," he said, "the reason is simple, you know  just as well as I do, that in 1919 after the war was finished the British  blockaded Germany and nearly starved Her to death. And these youngsters were  eating grass, he says, and Hitler hasn’t let them forget it." The way he taught  history causes these men to march down this street singing this song.

And  then the thought occurred to me, if all those babies had been swapped at birth  between English and German mothers, the babies born to the German mothers would  be fighting for the British and the babies born to the British mothers would be  fighting for Hitler. It’s all in the way we teach history. You see the historian  causes the little boys to say "we." We rounded the Cape of Good Hope. We licked  the tar out of the Russians in the Crimea War. We crossed the plains and beat  Wolfe at Quebec. We fought with Nelson in the Battle of Trafelgar. But I’ll tell  you something interesting, some few years later in Paris when I was with a group  of Americans there, on the Fourth of July, I was taxed to the utmost. I was  presented with a long medallion, congratulating me on becoming a citizen of the  United States of America and I was called upon to make a response. And then it  occurred to me that in the "War for Independence" there were really no  Americans, they were all British on both sides. So I satisfied them with this  information and it seemed to quell the disturbance that had arisen. Gentlemen,  history is important, babies come into this world, trailing clouds of glory,  they come into this world as human beings, and after they get here we change  them over into Englishmen, Americans, Italians, Russians by the way we teach  history. Is that not so? By the way we teach history.

I remember standing  in this Church on the day that King Edward the Eighth abdicated. You know that  famous speech. "At long last I am able to say a few words of my own." The poor  fellow, "at long last." I was here with Brother Frank Edwards that night, and as  we were listening to the broadcast he broke down and cried. He said, "Forgive me  Arthur, if you don't have character you don't have anything, and what this man  has done cuts me to the soul. Cuts me to the soul." He said, "I know it's an  emotional thing, he says I know my head says one thing, but he says, my heart  says something else." And his heart had been captivated in the schools of  course, like mine had when I was a boy.

I remember walking out from the  history class every Friday afternoon and reenacting the battles, all in which  the British had been victorious. We divided up the class and fought the battles  again, and that is the way we learned history. What a travesty on common sense.  That’s why I said last night, that somewhere, sometime, someone has to write the  truth about the human story, because you see, men react to life and to their  situations according to their views of the past, the way they have been taught,  and what they have imbibed. And unless somebody, sometime soon, can so far be  endowed with the Spirit of Truth to write a history book that tells the truth  about the human story, we shall never I’m afraid, produce those men who will not  take up the sword against their neighbor. And they will not do it because they  know the truth about the human story and know that war is not the means by which  human disputes are to be settled.

And so tonight as we think about the  story of humanity, I wonder if we could return a little bit to what we said  yesterday. The universe is created by God and in its midst are creatures that He  has created out of His love because He is love. God doesn’t love us because we  are lovable, He loves us because He is love, it’s His nature to do this. And  gentlemen, nothing you and I can ever do can make God stop loving us, and caring  for us, and spending Himself for us, and becoming involved with us. In  everything man does the Eternal is committed. There have been some who have  thought that God is unconcerned about humanity, that He is not involved in human  history. Then what do we do? We point to Calvary. We say yes we know that human  history is cruel, we know that it devours its children. We know that the story  of mankind is fraught with terrible things, but to say that God is aloof is not  true. For He Himself in the person of His Son has entered into the course of  time, and has taken in His own body the sins of men, and put them on a tree, and  made those sins shine with the love of God. So that forever after God says, yes  this is true, I gave man his agency in the Garden of Eden, and because he has  his agency means he has the power to say yes or no to Me, and because he said no  to Me, sorrow and sin, destruction and disease has come upon man. And yet in  spite of this, He himself entered in to the arena of human history and took all  that men could do, that wicked men could do, took it in His own body. Without  recrimination had revealed in the midst of the sin of men the love of God. This  we shall say something more about a little later on.

God created us, my friends, because He is love, and why?  Because being love, He needed creatures upon whom He could lavish His love. And  finding that in us, His creation in the midst of time, He Himself came down and  became as man, in order that He might teach His creatures how to love, and in  order that loving them in the person of His son, He might win from them an  answering love.

Loves creates, and the love which creates also enters  into that which it has created. And entering into that which it has created in  order that it might display the love which prompted the creation. In order that  from the creation there might be elicited that response, which is the response  of love to love, that the creature might respond in love to the Creator and that  in this God might find Himself reflected. This brief statement of theology,  brief statement of the nature of God, just in this particular connection is, I  am sure you will see, clear and without equivocation. God created us and in the  course of time there have arisen many many many empires, and these have arisen  and have subsided. All flesh is as grass, and the flower or intelligence of man  is as the grass of the field. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth  away. Ah, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. Man is an expression of the  Divine word, the fact that He is testifies that God speaks today. God speaks  every time a baby is conceived. God speaks every time a Thrush sings. God speaks  every time the grass is cut, and you smell new mown hay. God speaks every time  the sun rises. The earth is full of His word, and mankind has conducted a  dialogue with God down through the course of time. God speaks and man answers or  refuses to answer, which is a response of speech if he even refuses to  acknowledge that God has spoken. And when God speaks, what does He say? The  first revelation which God gives to us as His creatures, is not to tell us what  to do. The first primary revelation that He gives to each one of us, in order of  emphasis and in order of importance is this, "I am the Lord thy God," I have  rights in your life which you do not have in your own life. "I am the Lord thy  God". This is the first and primary revelation and man's response is conducted  according to his standard of values. And so it is down through the course of  time, God has called and men have either responded or failed to respond. The  whole history of the human family can be discerned in a response and  non-response to the revelation of God, either through the word of the prophets  and the voice of the Spirit, or through the person of His Only Begotten Son,  Jesus Christ. For in Jesus, the Word of God which sustains all, and creates all,  and keeps all in consistency, this Word of God was made manifest and so far as  the Divine utterance can be fully revealed in a human being, Jesus so revealed  that utterance. But that utterance I want you to know was not something given  once for all. This is where Protestantism and Protestant theologians stumble,  they believe, although they do not know what the word of God is from what I can  gather from reading after them, they believe that Jesus Christ finished His work  and left and entrusted it to mankind. And they say frankly, the time is now not  for a revelation of God, but for the revelation of man, to express himself and  to give to God the response which God requires of him in their own way and  according to their own desires. Of course this is heresy as we know. As I said a  moment ago God has spoken and men have responded, and in the person of Jesus  Christ, humanity did give to God the response that God required from His  creation. Gentlemen, have you ever pondered in your soul what you did in Jesus  Christ, what we did in Jesus? Has it ever dawned upon you by the revelation of  the Spirit that Jesus Christ is your own better self growing up in your midsts?  Did it ever dawn on you that the gift that has been given to you of the Spirit  of God is His image in you? The same image which was manifested in all its glory  and beauty in the body of Jesus Christ when He was here upon the earth. Has it  ever dawned upon you that that revelation given in the midst of time, equal  distant from both ends of it, is a perfect revelation of an eternal reality? And  that always, everywhere, men respond to the word of God just about as they did  when He was with them personally on the earth? Let us think about it for a  moment shall we?

I remember well one time some years ago I went to a  certain friend of mine's office in the Auditorium, just dropped in for a chat as  we do causally. And he said to me, "Hello, how's your racket?" I said,  "Terrible, how's yours?" Well he says, "It's worse than yours," he said, "I  can't get anywhere." I said, "Well what's the matter?" And he opened his drawer,  put his hand in and fished out a long roll, it was twice as long as he could  stretch. I said, "What have you got there?" He said, "I've got a synopsis of  history here, and I'm trying to figure out when Jesus will come again. I said,  "Well don't you know it says that no man knoweth the day nor the hour?" "Yea,  but the Lord didn't say he’d never know the year." So he began talking, "if the  world was created in 4000 BC, and if the little season lasts a thousand years."  Course you men know what I'm talking about when I talk about the little season,  don't you? You know when Satan is going to be loose again? And he says, "That  adds up to 2000 years, if the little season is a thousand years, and we’re now  in 1940 something. So that leaves it that if this is so then Christ, we can say,  will come and so forth, that the end of the world would appear in about 2000  AD." All the while he was talking, something was happening to me. And I thought  to myself, why is this good man wasting his time, or was he wasting his time?  Then something clicked in my mind, and I called him by name and I said, "You  know the end of the world has already come in principle." "Well what do you  mean?" I said, "The end of the world was shown forth in the life and ministry,  the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ." He said, "How so?" As I  began to talk again the Good Spirit opened my mind. Jesus Christ our Lord was  humanity demonstrated in our midst, the whole course of human history taken up  into His person and made manifest for us. And there we can see and only there we  can see the true meaning of the human encounter. Only there can we see and  arrive at a true understanding of the nature of life itself, in the ministry of  our Lord, through the recreation of His life by the Spirit in  us.

Remember, we said last night what is so important, there is the  universe around us which one day will disappear, because it is temporal, and  there is the universe within us, which never will fade away. The universe around  us is merely a scaffold, a scaffold from which the Almighty seeks to build the  universe within us. And everything which is around us is a means by which His  life is ministered to us. Not only the forces and the powers of nature with all  their principles, chemistry, mathematics, and all the rest, but also the doings  of mankind, the social situation in which we are, the inheritance which has come  to us through the country in which we were born, the friends we meet, the music  we listen to, the books we read, everything about us is merely a means by which  this inner universe is being constructed. And God has intended it that way. And  the life and ministry of Jesus Christ our Lord was played out on the world  around us, outside us, in order that it might be created in us. Jesus you know,  when He said to His Disciples, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I  go not away, the Comforter will not come to you" (John 16:7). As long as Jesus  remained on the earth in the flesh, they were conscious that there, some point  in space, some point in time, was centered their hopes, their ambitions, their  desires, their motives. But immediately, He was taken from them. They were set  free then to discover Him within themselves and all that was put on the stage of  history in the life and ministry of Jesus was simply the eternal principles of  God as they always are and always shall be, the Eternal was made manifest in the  midst of time. And the Spirit has been given to us in order that we might know  how to take within us that life and that ministry, so that there again might  appear on the earth the Kingdom of God. Not this time in its individual mode, as  it appeared in the life and ministry of Christ, but this time in its glorified  version, the City, the Nation, set upon a hill which cannot be hid. Do you see,  gentlemen, that all the course of time, both past, and present, and future  centers in the Lord Jesus? And that’s why we have been commanded to study  history, not that we might know something no one else does, but that in order  that we might see in the course of time through the eyes of Jesus, the perpetual  illustration of the principles that He came to teach us, that we might not be  lead astray by the sophistry of men. What is history? You ask the historian, and  every historian will give you a different answer. It certainly isn’t a  succession of events. Something beside this, there is meaning, there is purpose,  there is an end, there is an ideal, there is a goal toward which the course of  time moves. I believe one poet has said. "The one divine far off event to which  the whole creation moves is Jesus Christ, as He shall be embodied socially in  the midst of His people, in these the latter days." And so Jesus Christ came  then to reveal these things to us, and has given us His Spirit as a means by  which we can apprehend these things. And has told us as Elders in the Church,  "Ye are not sent forth to be taught, but to teach the things that I have put  into your hands by the power of my Spirit, and ye shall be taught from on high."  Now that doesn’t mean that we decry human learning for there are many, many  insights that are valuable but it does mean that in the midst of the lives of  you brethren, in the midst of your bodies there has been given a principle and a  power by which you might be able to discern, and to understand, and to accept  that which is truth, and eschew that which is error, so that you one day might  be independent of every creature beneath the celestial world. And every help in  government and grace which God has made manifest for you is given to you in the  gift of the Spirit, which you have. As you look at the life of the Lord Jesus  through the eyes of this self same Spirit which He is, you will see the drama of  human history again and again made manifest.

Let us look at it for a  moment shall we. On the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus talked with Moses, and  John the Baptist, possibly concerning the manner in which His mission was to be  accomplished. This I think is true because when He came down from the mountain  He began to talk in a new and a strange way to them about what should happen  when He went to Jerusalem, how He should suffer and how He should die, a note  that had been absent from His ministry largely before that time. And you  remember Peter. "...be it far from thee, Lord; this shall not be done..." and  how the rebuke came to Peter (Mat 16:23). You recall those days how on the road  to Jerusalem, James and John came to the Lord Jesus with their mother, and their  mother said, "grant that these my two sons may sit, one at Thy right hand and  one at Thy left when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom" (Mat 20:20). I don’t think we  have settled that problem in this church yet, do you, really? I don’t think so.  The eternal thrust of the "I"! "My two sons may sit at Thy right." One good  thing about this mother, she had sense enough to know that neither of them could  sit in the seat of Jesus Christ. And that’s one thing a lot of mothers don’t  know about their sons, when they teach them.

Brethren, as you look at the life and ministry of Jesus as  He moves toward the climax of His ministry you see involved there the whole  history of the human race. He comes rejoicing into Jerusalem, and instead of  making His way to the center of government, claiming His rights as King, He  tamely, and lamely goes to Bethany and spends the time there with Mary and  Martha where He raised Lazarus.

And then a little after that He enters  into the feast of the Passover with His disciples. And gentlemen, He said to  them "With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer"  (Luke 22:15). And here they were striving and struggling one with another as to  who was the greatest in the Kingdom of God. All stimulated by the question, who  should sit at Thy right hand and on Thy left. "These two you fellows," Peter  must have said, "have a lot of nerve, asking for these two places." I can  imagine him saying to Andrew, "Why Andrew you know that over there at Caesarea  Philippi, I was the man that recognized the Lord Jesus first. And he told me  that He would give me the keys of the Kingdom. If anybody should sit on His  right hand it ought to be me, not those two young fellows." Scriptures doesn’t  say that but it says there arose a great contention among them as to who was the  greatest, and it broke Jesus' heart. This is reflected in the fact that in the  seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel you have His prayer, "Lord I pray not  for the world, but for those that Thou hast given Me out of the world that they  might be one." His whole concern was that His disciples might come to know the  secret of His love and its unifying power in their lives. Then out of the many  there might be made one, so there might be offered to God this offering of a  humanity unified, itself unified as He was unified with His Father and with the  Holy Spirit.

An so you know what transpired, you know how Judas betrayed  Him. An that brings me to something which is utterly vital, and vital in this  point of view. I wonder what Peter would have done, you remember he had a sword  with him which he used later. What Peter would have done, had he known that  Judas was going to betray Him? Let me ask you, do you think that Judas would  have gotten to the door, had Peter known? No. Jesus protected Judas in the act  of betrayal when he said to him, "that thou doest do quickly." He protected him.  If God is to win men, He Himself must be obedient to the Law of their being. Do  you see that? He cannot violate their agency. If He were to do this everything  we know of man would vanish. And so the Son of God protected Judas in the act of  betrayal. If a son of man will betray the Son of God, or if a son of the son of  man will betray His Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, then the Lord Jesus Christ  says, so be it. He will not violate out agency. Gentlemen that is a cardinal  principle which flows from one end of the human story to the other. "Men are  that they might have joy," (II Nephi 1:15) and if they are to have joy they must  be free. Even God Himself cannot violate that freedom and so He says to us in  these the latter days, wherefore hear My voice and follow Me and ye shall be a  free people, freedom is the basis of divinity. How jealously our Heavenly Father  guards it for each one of us. He will not violate our agency. We are left to  ourselves, to our lonely, isolated, terrible selves, to choose.

None of  you are here except through your own free choice, are you? When the priesthood  came to you did you not willingly agree to accept its responsibilities and its  opportunities? Surely you did. This choice you have made and because you have  made it, it has set your life in a certain channel. Judas made his choice, it  set his life in a certain channel. And once those choices are made, and the  courses of conduct are set in motion, except through the grace of God, and  notice I say this, except through the grace of God, they are irreversible, and  God cannot call back an act once taken. God cannot change the past gentlemen,  what’s done is done. And so Judas passed out into the night, the scripture tell  us, as passes out every man into the night of his own self, when he rejects the  Lord Jesus Christ. This is not only true of us, it is true of every man that has  ever been created and tonight hundreds of millions of men weep in outer darkness  because they have chosen to reject the Lord Jesus Christ. They follow courses of  conduct which are not endorsed by Him. And their plight constitutes a call to  us, God loves them, and even the pain that they suffer is a revelation of His  concern for them, so that through that pain their selfishness might be pierced,  the citadel of their souls conquered by His love and they might be won back to  Him. And even Hell is an expression of His divine love, for therein men are  taught to repent. And so Judas passed out into the night. Here we have not the  dealings of one man with another, here we have the way in which the Eternal God  always treats humanity. For Peter who denied His Lord there was forgiveness. For  Judas, who betrayed Him, nobody knows, he passed out into the night. And we  don’t know the end, there must be "some sad, sequestered state Where God  unmakes, but to remake the Soul He else first made in vain Which must not be"  (Robert Browning).

So our Lord goes into the garden, encounters the  soldiers, delivers Himself into their hands. What are we looking at here? We are  looking at the Lord Jesus Christ, who is presiding over His own execution.  Nobody surprised Him. Nobody took His life from Him. He laid it down willingly.  Whatever was done to Him, He permitted, it was with His consent, His free  consent. We talk of our freedom, which man among us is free, as Jesus was free.  Which man among us is free to take the worst that wicked men can do and yet make  no difference to him. We are not free as He was free. And so He went the "Via  Delorosa" and even His cross was too heavy for Him. It was carried by someone  else. There between two thieves, He was crucified. His temporal world came to an  end, as your world will come to an end, and my world will come to an end some  day. The universe of discourse which is you, will come to an end. And it’s that  world, and the way it ends which is of tremendous concern to our Heavenly  Father. The heavens will fold up, then as a vestige of a garment will vanish  away.

Gentlemen, has it ever occurred to you, God by His word can make a  galaxy or a universe, utter His word and it is obeyed, and yet it takes Him the  agony and the sweat, and the blood of the cross to change the heart of one  selfish man, so that it becomes a loving heart. Have you ever thought of that?  And has it ever occurred to you that it matters more to God in eternity, that  one little eight year old child makes a decision for righteousness of his own  free will, this matters more to God than the creation of the universe. That’s  why we are to teach our children light and truth. And when, in Zion, children  grow up without becoming converted to the Lord Jesus Christ, the parents have  blundered badly. And here again the sophistry of men is made manifest through  the education. By many, many means out children are taken from us. And we don’t  hold our natural increase in this Church tonight.

Let us return to the  life and ministry of our Lord. Jesus cannot change the past. Wicked men slew  Him. The mob, the Pharisees, His blood be upon us and upon our children and so  it has been ever since, has it not? But has it ever occurred to you that every  self satisfied Elder is this Church crucifies his own best possibilities. Self  satisfaction is the worse enemy that the gospel has. To be satisfied with  yourself, and to sit in satisfaction and refuse to minister, this is the essence  of crucifixion. The velerade with the Scribes and Pharisees were not that they  were not religious, they were. They had a tremendous heritage and a tradition  back of them and many of them were steeped in the tradition and earnestly and  sincerely tried to do that which they conceived to be right. But they were  satisfied with themselves, and so crucified the Lord of Glory. But when they  crucified the Lord of Glory, what did they kill? You cannot rob a son of God of  life, it is impossible. You cannot be robbed of life, except you yourself throw  it away. You cannot rob a Son of God of life. And what these men did when they  crucified our Lord Jesus Christ, they simple put an end to their own best  possibilities, for there He stood in their midst. He was what they might be. The  life He lived, the ministry He performed in the midst of them, this was their  calling, this was that for which they were made, and they refused it. Because  they said they see, they were blind, and because they said they were alive, they  killed Him, put Him on a cross.

But has it ever occurred to you too, that  the most amazing miracle that was made manifest in the life of the Lord Jesus  Christ was the fact that as He hung upon the cross, being buffeted in His soul  by the hate and the lust which was around Him, and it must have been terrible to  Him. Has it ever occurred to you that as He looked into the eyes of the  soldiers, and He prayed for them, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what  they do," that He never uttered one word of reproachment against them (Luke  23:35)? You asked for a miracle, you asked for an almighty God, you have One.  Here is a demonstration in the midst of the course of time, which gives meaning  to all time, and which gives purpose to all time, that love is triumphant and  nothing any man could ever do, can change the fact of the eternal almighty love  of God.

This is revealed in the life and the ministry of the Lord Jesus  Christ. Your history is there and mine is too. We talk of the end of the world  and the end of the age, this will come of course when history moves to its  climax. But how about your world and how about the way in which it will end? It  it’s all revealed on Calvary, for Jesus as you know was crucified between two  thieves. One was repentant, the other was unrepentant.

And there are only three classes of people, two of them are  thieves and the other, sons of God. The unrepentant thief comes to the end of  his world and goes into oblivion, but he who said, "Lord remember me when thou  comest into thy kingdom," receives from the lips of the Lord the blessing, "this  day thou shalt be with me in Paradise, or in peace" (Luke 23:4344). This is  received by every son of Adam who is truly and sincerely conscious of the fact,  that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord. He may not belong to our Church, he may  have no notion of what our Church stands for and yet he may have some knowledge  of the Son of God, he receives the blessing of pardon and in paradise shall be  found. All of us are thieves. Oh, you say that is strong language. It is! Let me  ask you first of all, to whom do we belong, do we belong to ourselves? Are we  our own men? You know in this world today there's a piece of fiction written by  a man named Henley (Invictus), who says, "I am the master of my fate. I am the  captain of my soul. It matters not how strait the gate or charged with  punishments the scroll, my head may be bloodied but it’s unbowed. I’ll take  what’s coming to me, so what."

And then there is that little bit of  fiction that was written by Shakespeare, you knew, "This above all; to thy own  self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be  false to any man." Supposing you have a self that is not worth anything, what  about that? Do you want to be true to that? Matters not how straight the gate.  The amazing pride of the thrust of the children of men, when they are learned  they think they are wise, counsel themselves, trust in the arm of flesh, and  overlook the riches and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so these men  crucify to themselves the Son of God, as does every other son of man, who  chooses his way against the way of God. We do not belong to ourselves, we are  created by Him. He has made us, we belong to Him in a way that we can never  belong to ourselves.

Beethoven wrote Opus One Two Seven, number two. Took  it to the publisher, he was hungry and needed some money to buy some food, and  he played it for the publisher. The publisher said, "I'll give you seven florens  for it," and he gave him seven florens or shillings for it, and he took the  manuscript. And the publisher said we will call this the "Moonlight Sonata,"  because that is what it sounds like. Nothing was further from Beethoven's mind  than moonlight when he wrote that piece of music. Then the publisher took hold  of it and said, "This is mine." I will lay a wager tonight, there’s no man in  this room who can tell me the name of that publisher, but you all know the  "Moonlight Sonata," because even when the publisher got his hands on it, who did  it belong to? It belonged to the man that made it. It belonged to Beethoven, he  was in every line, cadence and key relation every movement of it belonged to  him, and it always will belong to him. And if you are in favor of a little  levity, I will inject some here. I remember the time I went home one day when my  son was playing Beethoven, and Beethoven was loosing.

God made us, we  belong to Him. Not only do we belong to Him, He has bought us. Do you remember  the story of the boy that made the ship? The fourteen-fifteen year old boy,  lavished his care upon it. It was a beautiful little vessel. And when it was  finished he went down to the lake, put it on the lake to sail and some errant  wind caught it, filled the sails, and it went beyond his reach. Sailing clear  across to the other side of the lake, it was lost. In vain did he search for it.  His father and he drove around the lake looking for it. Then one day they were  driving in another town, way on the other side of the lake, they came to a pawn  shop, the boy happened to glance into the window and there was his ship. Stopped  the car, excitedly ran into the shop and he said to the man, "Say you have my  ship in your window. Oh," he said, "it's mine, I made it." "Sonny," he said,  "that doesn't belong to you. Someone came in here and I gave him fourteen  dollars for it." He says, "That's mine." "No," the boy said, "It's mine." The  man said to him, "You bring me fourteen dollars, and you can have it." So the  boy went out and earned fourteen dollars, took it back and gave it to the man.  Proudly coming out of the shop with his ship he said, "Daddy, here's my ship, I  made it and I bought it." Some day the Lord Jesus Christ will say to His Father,  "Father, here is Thy creation, We made them and We have bought them." We don’t  belong to ourselves.

And what folliant pride is it for a man to make up  his own mind what he shall do with his life, which isn’t his to start with. A  young man will sit down in his teens or his young manhood and imagine what life  will be like when he is forty. And decide what area of life he will serve in, in  order that he might become successful, and then he turns around and he uses all  the gifts, and the opportunities, and the graces, and the blessings of God, to  get what it was that he desired. There are many many many thousands of  successful men who have done just that. They live on fine streets, they have  nice families, a street full of friends, two cars in the garage, money in the  bank, they carry all the best kind of credit cards they are, they’re members of  all the best clubs, but they’re certainly excluded from the Kingdom of  God.

For it is not true, that man belongs to himself. It is true that man  belongs to God, and for everyone of us there is in the Lord Jesus Christ a  better self, which He will give to us. There’s a part of life for each one of us  mapped out. Which if we accept it, we will find Him waiting for us at the  completion of our journey. And one day we will stand erect, in the full manhood  of the Lord Jesus Christ, free. Free to what? Free to do for men what they  cannot do for themselves, free to suffer for men that which they do not know  needs suffering. Free to give to men, all that they do not know they miss. This  is the calling of the men of the ministry. And so on Calgary was revealed the  end of the world, your world and mine. And if we die and lay down our lives as  the Son of God laid down His life, then we pass from this stage of action with a  consciousness, that some day we shall return and our ministry shall  continue.

History devours its children, but history when viewed in the  light of the Spirit of God, and when action is taken in the individual life in  light of that Spirit, history is a means by which eternal life can break into  the shades of the night of this present world existence. Gentlemen, God is, He  is eternal, and God is love. This is the cardinal fact of the universe and we  who are joined to Him by His Spirit, in the inner deepest recesses of our souls,  we cannot escape Him. We ought to discover that which is within us in order that  our own history might be transfigured with the light and the glory and the power  of the Son of God. Why do we talk about history when we talk about the Holy  Spirit? There is no way to avoid it. We are involved, we cannot escape it. We  cannot escape the judgments of history. We must suffer the consequences of what  other men do, even as the Lord Jesus suffered the consequences of what other men  did to Him. This we cannot escape, but as He did we can take the exigencies of  time, and the antinomies of time. We can take all that men can do to us and if  we use it in the manner designed of God, it can turn to our glory. And even that  which seems dark and dreary, and hard to endure can be made by the grace and the  power and the endowment of the Spirit, to be used as the means of glorifying  God. I care not how scared a soul may be, if only that soul turns and relies  upon the Lord Jesus Christ and does the things that the Lord puts into his heart  by the power of the Spirit to do. There is the secret gentlemen. The word of God  speaks, for unless He is revealed everywhere, He cannot be revealed anywhere.  Unless He calls all men, He cannot choose any man. Unless He is revealed in the  history of Russia, He cannot be revealed in Europe or in the United States. And  if He is not revealed in the history of the doings of men in the United States,  He is not revealed in the history of the doings of the men of the Church. Of  course, He works in different ways, in different areas but always of God. And it  is our welfare to know this and to come to know Him and to enjoy Him forever,  this is the end and the purpose of mankind.

And so again, I say it and I  emphasize, as I emphasized last night, do not neglect the gift of God that is  within you. For in you there is that power by which every circumstance of life  can be taken and made to serve the cause of the kingdom. Love is triumphant over  all. You know the story of the little girl, don't you? Climbed onto her mother's  knee one day and said to her mommy, "I think you're the loveliest lady that ever  lived." And the little girl said, "your skin is beautiful, you eyes are  beautiful, your hair is beautiful. Mommy, I love you so much. But Mommy, why are  your hands ugly?" And they were. So the mother turned to the little girl and she  said, "Well Sussie, when you were little, your bed caught on fire one night, and  I heard your screams and I went and beat out the flames with my hands and this  is the result." The little girl never said anything. She said her prayers and  went to bed. Then a few weeks later the same process was repeated. "Mommy I  think you're the most lovely lady in the world, your hair, your skin, your eyes.  Mommy you know something, the loveliest thing about our are your hands." Love  had taken that ugly thing and made it to that child a thing of beauty. And when  the love of God takes the sin of the world it doesn't alter the fact of the sin.  It changes its value, so the very sins men commit become the occasion of the  revelation of the glory and the endowment of the Spirit of God. And this is what  history is saying in the Lord Jesus Christ and that is what it says in your life  and in mine. Gentlemen, with such a God and in possession of such a Spirit, who  cannot fail to go on in this great cause? God has validated our calling in the  life and the ministry of His Son. Oh, I beg of you, as one of your brethren, to  seek to study the life and the ministry of Jesus with all your heart, might,  mind, soul and strength. Not only seek through the study of the written word but  seek on your knees the revelation of the Spirit which will make the record  luminous. As you find walking in the midst of your consciousness the image of  the Lord Jesus Christ. And time and time again if you will do this, you will  have recreated within you some of those aspects of the scriptural life of our  Master and you will be able to say, Him I know, for I have seen Him. For God  holds the course of time in one unitary, solitary, comprehensive grip. He sees  it all, the past, the present, and the future, all in one eternal grasp. And is  able to bring to your mind and to mine that which is in harmony with His will,  which will serve His purpose in each of us, to bring us to the maturity to which  we are all called.

July 29, 2001

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