S. The House of God

THE HOUSE OF GOD ( Dedication Sermon of East Waco Church House where George W. Truett was Pastor.) TEXT: For we (preachers) are God’s fellow-workers: ye (church members) are God’s field, God’s building. Know ye not that ye are a temple o f God, and that the Spirit o f God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. The house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground, of the truth. - 1 Corinthians 3:9; 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 1 Timothy 3:15. Brethren of the East Waco Baptist Church, with the pastor and deacons, visiting brethren from other churches, and friends of whatsoever religious name or state: We are all here before God upon no ordinary occasion. The occasion is the setting apart of this goodly structure to exclusive religious use. It is not intended as a hall of justice, like the court rooms beyond the river, nor for political uses, nor for any secular use, however good and profitable any of these may be in their place. The building and furniture as it now stands cost about $10,000, as will appear directly from the report of the Building Committee. This large sum of money comes not from any public fund, nor from any system of taxation, but from the voluntary contributions of the members of this congregation and such of their friends as chose to aid them. It is doubtless a matter of curiosity with some to note the character of the services by which this meeting house will be set apart to sacred use and to discover what special sanctity will attach thereto by reason of its consecration. From the outset we will be candid with all who may cherish this natural curiosity. There will be no imposing ceremony no ritualism whatever. The service will be exceedingly simple, a sermon deemed appropriate to the occasion, a brief history of the enterprise from its inception to completion, read by the clerk, a final report of the building committee, a prayer offering the completed house to the Lord and invoking His acceptance and blessing, and a song of praise to Him whose grace prompted His people to undertake the work and enable them to complete it. This is all. And when done it is only a meeting house of wood and brick, and not a temple. One object of the sermon today is to justify the simplicity of the dedication of a Baptist house of worship, if indeed services so very simple may be called a dedication at all. And now, brethren, before entering upon the exposition of the text, bear with some brief personal references, which will explain somewhat the pleasure with which I respond to your invitation to preach this opening sermon. The first public talk I ever made as a Christian was in a log house not far from this site. The occasion was a prayermeeting conducted by Dr. R. C. Burleson, in the fall of 1865. In the summer of that year I had been converted, but had not as yet united with any church. Indeed, the church question was occasioning me no little trouble. My conscience was much exercised on that grave question, which, when decided, so largely affects the Christian’s after-life: “What church shall I join? Which, if any extant is, in form of government, polity and doctrine, conformed to the mother church at Jerusalem-the model established by our Lord?” With the New Testament before me as the only standard of authority, I had little trouble in deciding in favor of the Baptists except upon two points commonly called “close communion” and sanctification. On these two doctrines I had not reached a satisfactory conclusion. On the communion question I had but recently read the views of two authors whom I greatly admired, Robert Hall and John Bunyan. My difficulty on sanctification was not at all in the direction of the modern holiness idea, but to determine whether the Bible taught an imputed holiness or a personal holiness. If imputed, it was instantaneous and contemporaneous with justification. If personal, then the Baptist view was right. So, as Dr. Burleson was my old teacher, I concluded to ride the intervening 100 miles and consult him on these two points. While we were considering these matters, he invited me to drive with him to a prayer-meeting in East Waco, where, as he said, it would be necessary to establish a church some day. So, fording the river, we came to that old log house and there, without a word to me about it, he announced to the few country people present that there was with him a young Christian who would probably become a preacher, and who ought then and there to get up and tell those people what he knew of the grace of God. And thus, after such a method, I was literally thrust forth to testify for Christ in the log house prayer-meeting, which three years later led to the organization of the East Waco Baptist Church. Again, on a later visit, in July 1868, this church having been organized the May previous, I united with its first pastor, Bro. Walker, in aiding Bro. J. M. Wright in a meeting seven miles below this point, which resulted in the organization of the New Hope Church, to which I was called as pastor in October, 1869. Since that time I have been intimately associated with all the successive pastors of this church four of whom sit behind me today in this pulpit. Particularly is this true with regard to your present pastor, Rev. G. W. Truett. Your committee which sought my advice concerning his suitableness for the position, will recall my heartiness in recommending him; and the earnestness with which the growing importance of East Waco was urged as a suitable field for the development of a strong church. Well, you got him; and right glad of it you ought to be this day, gathered in this house, whose happy conception and speedy consummation are due to his counsel and labors. And so much did my own heart rejoice in your prosperity that when I was invited to preach this opening sermon in the new building, I fully purposed to prepare one worthy of the occasion. But an attack of erysipelas in the foot has confined me to my bed until this very morning, and so you must be content with such a sermon fresh from my heart as may be preached under the circumstances, on the grandest theme to which the Christian mind can be directed after the first sight of his Savior the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. In expounding the text, let us consider:

1. The term, “Fellow-workers.”

Usually the establishment and development of a church is the result of the labors of many preachers. It was true in the case of the church at Corinth, and is equally true with the East Waco Church. But mark you, the text does not say that these several men are “fellow-workers” with each other. Their labors were successive, not contemporaneous. They are God’s fellow-workers, that each one in his time was a fellow-worker with God. For example, the present pastor does not say to his predecessor: “We are fellow-workers,” but “I am God’s fellow-worker, as you were God’s fellow-worker in your day.” Fellow-worker, therefore, has no reference to a conjunction of one preacher’s labors with another preacher’s labors, for they were successive, not conjoined, but to the conjunction of their work with God’s work. God works. God does die divine part-man the human part. Under the agricultural figure of a field, God created the seed, sends sunshine and fruitful seasons, making it to germinate, grow and mature. Man plants and cultivates. Hence Paul’s question, not “Who is Apollos,” but “What is Apollos and what is Paul?” “Servants.” Whose servants? God’s. What is their service? To lead men to faith in Christ and build them up together in that faith. But the servant is only an instrument in the hands of God a minister through whom men believe as God gives to every man. One servant may plant:, and another may cultivate, but God makes it grow. Thus are they fellow-workers with God. Bearing in mind, therefore, the subordinate position of the greatest preacher on earth, we understand the justice of Paul’s conclusion: Glory not in men, but in God. The honor of the laborer is the association of his work with God’s work-God’s fellow-worker. But where there have been successive laborers in the same field, it becomes a question:

2. How can we apportion to each his credit and reward?

We can’t do it. We may not even try it. It is not denied, but affirmed, that each laborer will receive an equitable reward. But we cannot make the award. Who then and how? Look at the case before us suggesting the text. Paul started that work at Corinth. He planted that crop. He laid the foundation of that building. Others came after him to cultivate the field planted by him or to carry up the wall on the foundation he had laid. And he insists that he started the work right; holding up before those people one theme: Christ and Him crucified; relying on no natural endowment of body or mind no physical or mental acquirement, no trick of elocution no well-rounded period of rhetoric. He came among them in fear and trembling, relying, not partially but absolutely and wholly, upon the demonstration of the Spirit, that their faith might not stand in men, but in God.

    No man could lay any other foundation, though he might build thereon. But he urges that in the great variety of building material, let him be careful what he puts on that foundation. It must correspond to the foundation. True, you may, if you will, reject the costlier marble with its garniture of silver and gold, and build a cheaper wall of wood, and thatch it with straw. But one thing is certain, when Jesus comes, there will be no need for the several pastors themselves, or their partial friends in their behalf, to dispute about respective credit and reward. For, says the Apostle, “That day itself will declare it” declare it by fire. Then however hard or long or acceptably to men the pastor toiled, if he “daubed with untempered mortar,” or if he built of wood or stubblequicker than lightning, in that fire, will his wall tumble into ruins or his thatch roof go up in flame and smoke-counting for nothing that day. One flash of that flame supersedes all argument as to respective merit, and reveals the enduring or evanishing character of each man’s work. He himself, if a converted man, will be saved, but if his works be bad-he suffers loss. Judgment will be God’s line, and righteousness His plummet when He comes to inspect our work on the wall. Let us next inquire, Where so many work:

3. Whose is the field whose the building?

Here emphasis is brevity. It saves the use of labored explanation. Mark then the emphatic word: “Ye are God’ s Field, God’ s Building.” In contradistinction to and in rebuttal of any claim of ownership set up by any preacher himself or by his friends, for him that emphasis is final: “God’ s Field-God’s Building.” Should Paul say: “The church at Corinth is my building,” or should Apollos say, “No, it is mine,” and Peter say: “But it is mine,” or these being silent, their respective friends should say: “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Peter,” the whole of them go down in a moment before the words, “Ye are God’ s building.” But the thought most pertinent to this occasion is suggested by the next question:     

4. What is the field-what is the building?

Again emphasis is brevity. “Ye are God’s field Ye are God’s building.” Let the emphasis on that pronoun contradistinguish from this meeting-house of brick and wood. Do allow me to impress most solemnly on your minds today that ye people making this congregation of Christ’s baptized disciples are the husbandry the house of God. Nowhere in the New Testament is the meeting-house called a church. Modern usage has so applied the, name “church,” to the place of assembly that much hurtful confusion arises in the minds of the thoughtless. The usage doubtless grew out of the gross misconception that Christian houses of worship are the successors of Solomon’s temple and so must have altars and priests, and so must be dedicated with imposing rites and ceremonies, and so when dedicated became holy places, a violation of whose sanctity became sacrilege. Hence the gorgeous cathedrals of the dark ages whose ornamentation cost millions of money and whose services became idolatry. The painter’s art and the sculptor’s chisel were employed to minister to a man’s aesthetic taste and throw a halo around a structure which covers holy ground. The place became the attraction of pilgrimages and the alleged locale of miracles and so fostered colossal superstitions subverting our Lord’s glorious doctrine: “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.” “But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His worshipers. God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:21; John 4:23-24). Moreover, it diverted attention from God’s true house, which house are ye. I would not disparage your meeting-house, brethren, nor underestimate its uses. But if its walls were Parian marble, its roof a poem of architectural beauty, its spire gilded, cloud-piercing and diamond tipped, yet would it remain true that ye worshipers are God’s building and not the structure made by human hands. Not only so, but every part of any meeting house, and all ornamentation whatever, that diverts the mind from the simplicity of New Testament worship, and detracts from the utility of any auditorium where God’s word is preached, is more than a blunder; it is a crime. Let us bless God that we are emerging from the dark ages, the idolatrous cathedral ages. No wonder that Mark Twain, when contrasting the beggary rags and wretchedness of Italy with the uncountable millions squandered on the cathedrals, sarcastically remarked: “The amazing thing is that it never occurred to them to rob the churches.” The congregation, whether meeting in groves, or tents or private houses, or structures specially erected for permanent use as a place of worship the organized congregation, that is God’s building. If our modern meeting-houses are the successors of anything, it is the ancient synagogues, which, after the return from the Babylonian captivity, were erected by pious Jews in every place, not as temples, but as houses of religious instruction. Solomon’s temple has but one antitype in this world today, a congregation of Christ’s baptized disciples. What says our text: “Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17.) Now, if it were accounted sacrilege to defile the temple of Solomon, to make it a place of barter and exchange, to crowd its courts with doves and oxen, to erect in its holy place “the abomination of desolation”-if it were sacrilege to mar the sanctity of that mere type of cold rock which never had in it more than a symbol of the Divine Presence, how much more sacrilegious to mar the spiritual antitype a congregation of Christ’s baptized disciples, the true habitat of God’s eternal Spirit. With what painful tardiness does the conception enter our minds that to destroy the unity and fellowship of one of God’s churches is as much more heinous a sacrilege as the antitype surpasses the type! “Whoever destroys the temple of God, him will God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” However slight some may regard the offense of schism, causing divisions in a congregation of God’s people, it is yet as much graver a crime than stealing or murder as the first table of the law excels the second table. Our first and holiest and most far-reaching relation is our relation to God. A church of Jesus Christ is the only organization on earth inhabited as a home by the Holy Spirit. Here let us consider the latter part of our text: “These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly; but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” - 1 Timothy 3:14-16. The preceding chapters show that Timothy was left at Ephesus to set in Gospel order the affairs of the church established at that place by Paul, its doctrine, its order of public worship, its officers and their official duties. To this he refers in the phrase: “That thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God.” Proprieties are quite important, but the reference is to the conduct and order of worship by the congregation, and not to the amenities and civilities of social etiquette in the place of assembly. For example, he distinguishes in the prayer service between the respective parts of men and women, the men to pray everywhere, the women to learn in silence and subjection, just as he had required particularly in the congregation at Corinth, and “in all the churches of Jesus Christ.” - 1 Corinthians 14:26-34. Then comes the importance and functions of the pastoral office and the office of deacon. It is doubtless deemed a matter of some importance by you East Waco people who shall be the next president of the United States, and maybe (I don’t know) some of you are interested somewhat in the pending election for mayor, but these are much more important questions to you: “What shall be the order of our worship what the doctrines preached to us and hence, who shall be our pastor?” Solemn question! To be left at God’s feet. “O Providence, guide our choice! O Thou Holy Spirit, whose province it is to make overseers of God’s flock, show to us him whom Thou wouldst have to minister to us.” You have him, I think. With heart and judgment, I think you have him. This much sure, he would have chosen death rather than acceptance of your call, if he had not felt it was also God’s call. Much and earnestly we prayed and counseled about it together. And so with the deacons. Behavior in the house of God! The house-what house? In Old Testament times this might have meant the temple, a material structure, but here, what? “The House of God, which is the Church of the Living God.” Church building? No. All the saved people in the world, dead or living? No. The congregation of Christ’s baptized people at Ephesus, a local, working, worshiping, organized business body, just as this local church here. As Paul himself writes to this same church at Ephesus: “In whom (Christ) each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also (the congregation at Ephesus), are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.” - Ephesians 2:21-22, R. V. Meyer, the greatest exegete of the New Testament text, thus elucidates: “In whom each congregation, in whom also yours, organically develops itself unto its holy destination, ” and further shows that Paul’s conception is not of the whole Christian community, but “every congregation for itself” is a temple-building. He then cites 1 Corinthians 3:16, a part of our text, as an instance where the conception of the general “collective body of Christians” is, to use his own words and emphasis, “linguistically impossible.” So you also, the East Waco Baptist Church, (not this beautiful meeting house) are the house, the temple of the Living God, mark you - LIVING GOD. The temple of Diana, at this same Ephesus, held an image, not the sculptured form embodying in marble the beautiful Greek conception of the chaste Diana-but a monstrous prodigy, a hideous wooden image representing nature. But there was no life in that image. It was dumb and dead. No voice, no hearing, no feeling, no love. How it recalled the sarcasm of old Elijah, taunting the 400 vociferous priests of Baal: “And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is musing or he is gone aside or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it was so, when midday was past, that they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening oblation; but there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.” - 1 Kings 18:27-29. But, brethren, our God is alive! He inhabits His church and vitalizes it. He “inhabitest the praises of Israel” and His life gives power to preaching, unction to prayer and sweetness to song. Ours is not a God of mere history, a reminiscence of yesterday, last year, ancient times, but a living, present reality, now, here. God is alive. Jesus is risen indeed. Oh! My brethren, the joy of being the ambassador, not of a defunct dynasty, a desiccated mummy, but of the living God, here accessible, now to hear our prayers now to shake the ground where the pious kneel, now to quicken the dead. It flushes the heart to think of it. God is alive! Yes, ye Sunday School children, Jesus is alive - hear His voice in your spirits today: “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me.” Power, present power, saving power, omnipotent power, power to cast out Satan, power to send down heaven’s glory to cover the earthly mercy seat. But to what end does God inhabit His church? “The pillar and ground of the truth.” Truth itself conceived of as a temple, like the Athenian Parthenon. Its ground, what? The everlasting rock of the Acropolis. Its supports, what? Those glorious pillars, matchless masterpieces of marble sculpture. What then is the office of the church? The pillar and ground of the truth. On the church, as a rock foundation against which the gates of hell cannot prevail, rests the truth. As a marble column upholds the superincumbent structure, so the church is the pillar of the truth. To blot out the church organizations, if one could do it, would be a blighting thing, for truth would fall. Conceive of the blotting out of all solar and stellar lights. How cold and dark and dead the world! Oceans are adamant, rivers but stiffened, winding blocks of lice. But blot out the churches and who or what would hold up revealed truth, the truth of salvation? Who would publish it by a living ministry to earth’s remotest bounds, generation by generation? Who would illustrate it in holy words after the teaching power forever had ceased? Who would believe it, with none to bring it to hearing? Who would vindicate it by discipline when organization ceased? Who would pictorially represent it when ordinances and other monumental evidences had been pulled down with the organizations which administered them? How long would survive even one vestige of the holy day of worship and instruction, when the organic bond of the worshiping congregation was dissolved? How long would Sunday Schools, and Christian colleges, and orphanages and asylums continue when the organizations which established and nourished them are dead? How long would family religion maintain her altars in the homes after public instruction ceased? And when the Sabbathless, churchless wave of cold, hard secularism had swept over the world, leaving no light of revelation to shine on a Godless world, a world on whose sufferings only pitiless stars looked down in unsympathizing silence a world claiming indeed a God of nature, but a dumb and deaf God who heard no prayers and spoke no words-no voice of love. Ah me! What then would be in the world? Without the church, a Deist world would come, you say. Wouldn’t? From what page of history do you learn it? Divorce man’s worshiping heart from the God of revelation and heathen idolatry comes. The creature then is worshiped rather than the Creator. And even then that is better than a mythical, impossible thing, unknown to history, a Deist world, for “To own a god who does not speak to men, Is first to own and then disown again; Of all idolatry sure the total sum Is counting it a god that is both deaf and dumb.” I say, destroy the church and what or who becomes the pillar of revealed truth? Could you rely on the secular press? As a rule they decry that truth now and count that church or preacher the best who leaves it out and substitutes the chaff of so-called philosophy and humanitarianism instead. Let a preacher betray his solemn trust and use the pulpit for publishing infidelity and he becomes their hero. Take an example: Not long since there appeared in the Washington Post, afterwards copied into a Waco paper, a so-called New York preacher’s account of how he went to Washington City and, climbing into a belfry there, virtually worshiped the bell that tolled when John Brown was executed for insurrection and murder, and what feelings of reverence he had for him whose hand was red with blood unlawfully shed from Osawotamie to Harper’s Ferry, who, in time of peace, led an armed invasion, looking to bloody, servile insurrection against an unoffending sister state, and who, by violence, seized upon United States property and crimsoned with murder the streets of a peaceful village. I say, all this was preached as a sermon,, not only without a word of the Gospel peace in it, but actually substituting for “Christ Jesus and Him crucified” the theme of “John Brown and him hanged,” on which the secular paper comments: “That was a sermon indeed.” We come now to the last thought of the text: What is that truth of revelation of which the church is the pillar and ground? Our context gives it thus: “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” - 1 Timothy 3:16. This summary embodies six constituent parts: First, God was manifest in the flesh. This is the doctrine of the incarnation of Deity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and embraces all the facts of His miraculous birth, life, work, doctrines, vicarious death, burial and resurrection as set forth by the Gospel historians, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul. It is a crucial doctrine, for says the Apostle John, “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit of anti-Christ, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” No man can rightly be called a disciple of our Lord who denies it. It is fundamental and vital. Second, He was justified in the Spirit, which means that the Holy Spirit bore witness to His divinity and mission when incarnate. For example, just after His baptism and while He prayed, the Spirit in the visible and bodily form of a dove descended upon Him, accrediting His mission and qualifying Him for it, as it is written: “Him hath God the Father sealed,” and again: “Anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power,” and yet again: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Third, “Seen of the Angels,” which means that when incarnate, the veil of the flesh was transparent to an angelic sight. Man might be slow to recognize the “Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,” in the babe of Mary, but the angels knew Him. They saw Him, a babe in a manger, a cow trough, born that night, in a scene of poverty, and men saw nothing in that baby, but angels from above looking down upon the earth saw the baby and grouped together and leaned over and said, “We see the Master. We recognize His divinity.” And instantly spreading their wings, they came down in flight like lightning, and with rustling sweeter than song, hovered over the heads of the upgazing shepherds, and said to them, “Unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” We know it. We see Him. Yes, they saw Him when, in the temptation, the devil crawled around Him his tortuous, slimy length, and when the wild beasts came around Him, the angels saw. Him, and as soon as the devil left, they came and ministered unto Him. When Gethsamane left Him lonely and no man watched, the angels watched while Jesus prayed, and when He said, “O my Father, my Father, let this cup pass from me if it be possible,” and it could not pass and men be saved, an angel came and held His head while He drank the bitter cup to its dregs. And when He slept in death and Pilate said, “He is a dead man,” and the Sadducees said, “He is dead and there is no resurrection,” and when the Pharisees said, “He is dead,” and set a watch at His tomb, the angels saw Him, and though marred with gaping, bloody wounds they recognized Him the Son of God, and they came down and rolled that stone away and the Divine Being stepped forth. Fourth, Preached to the Nations. This incarnated Jesus Christ, dying upon the cross as the Savior and substitute of sinners, justified in the Spirit and seen of angels, was preached among the nations. If it had been said, “preached to the Jews,” that would have been a different thing, but for one coming as He came, to be preached to Gentiles; to the world, the whole wide world, the vast, lost world, the fallen and sinful world, the world of liars and thieves and murderers and backbiters, and for Him to say, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,” why that was a thought such as this world had never had before. Fifth, Believed on in the world. Men priding themselves upon their shallow philosophical analysis may say, “Why, you cannot believe in the incarnation of God. You cannot believe in the resurrection, you cannot believe in the power of the Holy Ghost,” and they will prove it to their satisfaction; but over against their sophistries stands the indubitable fact that men did believe on Him. “Believed on in the world.” Yes, He was believed on then, is believed on now. You believed on Him, brother, and you, sister, and you know it. Your soul is a witness that you did believe on Him. Now let them argue as they please, and say what they please, there stand the facts in your consciousness that you did from your heart believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that God did for His sake forgive your sins. Sixth, Received up into Glory. Resurrection and Ascension! Risen from the pit of death, from the conflict with the devil, binding him, chaining him to His chariot wheels, rising above all Jerusalem to the top of Olivet, rising above Olivet higher than Hebron or Lebanon, above Alps or Pyrenees, higher than the clouds or the stars, taken up, up, up, He goes up shouting, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and let the King of Glory come in. Who is the King of Glory? I, the Lord, mighty to save.” And so He mounted to the throne of the universe, and there, brethren, He ever liveth to make intercession for us. He is alive. Jesus is risen. Now you can prove it today by evidence more vivid than that supplied by the carnal sense of those who witnessed it nearly 2000 years ago. There is a more impressive demonstration of the Spirit. And now, if the congregation is the building, the true building, then what purpose does this house serve? It does this: It gives you a convenient, a commodious, a comfortable place for the assembling of God’s people, where your children can be taught in His Word, and where His Word can be preached regularly without regard to weather. It is of vast practical utility, is this house, and let it be used for that purpose. By way of directing it to this end, I do not expect to see anything today like sprinkling of holy water, but I do expect you will offer it to the dear Lord. Offer it to Him in prayer and ask Him to take it and make it the gate of heaven. I trust it will stand until thousands of souls have been converted in it. May its walls enwrap an atmosphere so vibrating with the presence of the Eternal Spirit of God, that just as soon as a man comes in at yonder door he will say, “God is in this house, of a truth God is in this house.” Oh, there is something in here, when those people come together, when they pray, when they sing, when the Word of God is preached, there is something in here that we have not out in the world, and that something is saving and it is as sweet as life. It is light that dispels the darkness of despair and the gloom of the grave and the black horror of hell. It is light that kindles in the heart an inextinguishable flame that cannot be fanned out by adverse winds, nor quenched by down pouring torrents of rain, but that shall burn, rising higher and higher, until it touches the person and presence of God in heaven. O, East Waco Church, how proud I am today that you stand where you do. May the benediction of God, dear people, come down upon your pastor’s head, as the oil that was poured on the head of Aaron until it ran down to the skirts of his garment. O Father God, let Thy Spirit clothe George W. Truett with salvation as with a garment, and make his heart hot within him as he speaks Thy truth. And may the deacons,, monuments of grace, under that spirit that is in them, be as pillars about him. And Lord God, grant that the boys and girls that now are and the children that are unborn shall look toward this building as the wanderer, after a long absence, looks toward home when the familiar fields and houses, and the curling smoke of the chimneys, and the watch-dog baying, and the light in the window, are near to him. Lord God, turn the hearts of the children that are yet unborn to this house, that here they may come to find the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.