S. THE NAME, THE EYES AND THE HEART OF GOD

THE NAME, THE EYES AND THE HEART OF GOD

TEXT: My name shall be there, and my eyes shall be there and my hear shall be there forever. - 1 Kings 9:3; Hebrews 4:16. It may be, I cannot recall it, that somewhere I have read a sermon on this text, whose thoughts are blended with my own. Be that as it may, my heart today is full of this theme, “the throne of God’s grace.” I am not referring to His throne as the King and Governor of the world, but to the throne where He hears and passes upon the petitions which His people send up to Him. Because of their necessities, the people intensely desired that God would put His name in some place where they would come to Him and offer sacrifices and make known to Him their troubles, and where they could find an answer suitable to their necessities. Therefore Solomon built a house for that purpose, according to the direction of God, and the sacrifices all looked to the place where God was to put His name. His name was not put at the entrance of the house. His name was not placed in the outer court. His name was not placed at the altar of sacrifices; but His name was placed inside of the veil, where the golden altar was, called the Altar of the Mercy Seat God’s name was there. The blood shed upon the altar of sacrifice was sprinkled there, because His name was to be there. He was to be found there, and nowhere else. Solomon, in his inspired petition, asked that God’s name might be placed at the golden altar, this Mercy Seat, and then went on to enumerate the reasons for making this request. The first was based upon the fact that all men are sinners. He says: “No man liveth and sinneth not.” The people will certainly sin and therefore will be in very great extremities, and we want a place where they may come and find mercy and forgiveness for their sins. Hence, in elaborating his petition: “If the people go to war and are in extremity on account of the number and strength and fierceness of their enemies, and feel that they are in need of help, because not able to cope with such formidable adversaries, then, Lord, if at that time they pray toward this place where Thy name is, hear Thou in Heaven and help them. And if there should come upon the land mildew, drought, plague, famine, earthquake or any general calamity, filling the hearts of the people with trouble and distress, and they feel unable to meet the terrific danger that has come upon them, then, Lord, if they pray toward this place where Thy name is, hear them and deliver them from their trouble. And if the people commit sin, and on account of their sin are delivered into the hands of their enemies, and are led away into captivity, no difference how far, and no difference how deep is the wretchedness of their lot as captives, if far away in alien lands they turn unto this place where Thy name is, and they confess their sins, and ask God to forgive them, then, Lord, hear Thou in heaven and forgive.” I wish to elaborate the thought that is presented in this general way by calling attention to the three separate ideas set forth in God’s answer to Solomon’s petition. He says, “My name will be there.” That is the first thought. “My eyes will be there.” That is the second thought. “And my heart will be there.” That is the third thought. The name of God in the Bible stands for His power, as when Peter says that he healed that lame man through the name of Jesus that is, through the power of Jesus. When the Lord says then, that “I will put my name” in a certain place, He simply means, “At that place I will concentrate my omnipotence.” The reason that the power should be put there was that a necessity on the part of the people would cause them to go there to obtain the strength of that power. “My name shall be there, right there at that mercy seat shall be all the omnipotence of God, so that it does not make any difference how weak you are, how few in number you are, there is my name, and that represents all power in heaven and on earth, and I put it there for you that pray.” Next He says, “My eyes will be there.” The thought is this: “My omniscience shall be there.” That door will never be closed. It makes no difference what time of the year you come, nor what time of the day you come, nor what time of the night you come. Not only will the door be there, but “I will be there to see you.” Just as soon as you come, God will see you. You need never expect to come and find Him absent. You need never expect to come and find the door locked so that you cannot get at me. “My eyes will be there. Dark as the night may be, and dire as your extremity may be, you kneel down toward this place. My eyes are there and I will see you. You will never get beyond my sight and power.” The third thought, “My heart will be there,” which shows that the omniscience and omnipotence which are to be at that place are there as instruments of His love, servants of His affection, as if He had said: “Omnipotence is the right hand of love, and omniscience is the left hand of love, and the power that is there and that omniscience that is there, are to be exercised by infinite love in behalf of those who seek my help.” Now, very briefly, that, is the very cream of the thought of the text. The trouble will be to get you to realize it. You can take that thought in mentally, but to get you to realize how much it means and how intensely practical it is in its application to us at the present day, that will be the difficulty. The Bible gives us an account of a man who went away from the presence of God.. He did it designedly. He fled from God’s presence, and there came a storm at sea upon the vessel that harbored this fugitive, and in the midst of the storm men began to cast about for its occasion. It seemed such a sudden and awful storm that they attributed it to the direct intervention of Providence, and that He was sending it for some special purpose, and therefore the question was, “Who has sinned? Who has brought this storm?” And by casting lots they ascertained that it was Jonah. He was the one. He was asleep in the hold of the ship. They bring him up and state the case to him. He says, “I am the man. I am running away from God, running away from God’s presence, sinning against Him. Now, the ship will be lost unless you throw me out.” Well, it was a sad thing to have to do that, and they prayed over it and asked God to hold them guiltless if they made a mistake about it. But when they found that nothing else would avail, they tossed that man overboard and he went down, down, sinking until the waves rolled over him, and away down in the depths of the sea a huge fish swallowed him whole, and, having swallowed him, instantly went deeper down to the very bottom of the ocean. The record says, “He went to the roots of the mountains that are in the sea, and the sea weeds were wrapped around the man’s head,” and he was miraculously preserved alive in the body of this sea fish, and away down in the bottom of the ocean, where no man in the history of the world had gone and lived, there he said: “I am cast out of Thy sight; yet I will look again toward Thy Holy Temple.” And God’s eyes were there, God saw this man down in the depths of the sea, and in that awful supernatural extremity, God heard the prayer that was offered, and His Spirit moved the fish to come to the surface and cast up the man on the dry land. How hard it is to measure this fact, “My name shall be there!” It shall be there with power to control the winds and the sea when it is tossed by the winds, and the fishes that inhabit the great deep, and shall reach unto the roots of the mountains in the bottom of the sea, where the sea-weeds are wrapped around the head of a disobedient man. That name has power to reach there. There is no depth that power can not sound. There is no distance so great but the feeblest cry that ever fell from the lips of a sufferer can be carried just as plainly and audibly to the ears of God as if it had been spoken near at hand through a speaking trumpet, or roared in the thunder of cannon. “My name shall be there and I will deliver him.” The second case which I select is that of Daniel. The people had sinned, one of the very contingencies about which Solomon had spoken in his prayer, and they had been carried into captivity, and there in that far-off land, this young man turned his heart toward God. Every day, three times a day, he would open his window that looked toward the place where was the name of God. His window was opened toward Jerusalem. And three times every day he would kneel down and present his petitions to God, telling Him all his needs and all the needs of his people. O, how wonderful is the story! How that voice, that gentle voice, that trusting voice, spoken through the window, went out across the burning sands of the intervening deserts, went on until it came to Mount Zion, went until it came to the entrance of the Temple, went until it passed the Altar of the Sacrifice, went behind the triple-colored veil and came up to the Mercy Seat sprinkled with blood, and there said: Lord God, help Daniel! And God’s name was there, and His eyes were there, and His heart was there, and the power was given and their: man and his people were redeemed. In the third case selected to illustrate the text, our Savior himself gives an account of a man who was a very great sinner. He was engaged in a business that made him a social outcast, and then, personally, his life had been a miserable and wretched and sinful life, and he felt that he was a sinner. He could not sleep for the awful thought that he was a sinner against God and he concluded to venture where God’s name was, and very modestly, very timidly, he goes just inside. He does not go up close, but standing afar off he smites upon his heart and says: “God be merciful to me, a sinner!” And God’s name was there, and His eyes were there, and His heart was there, and in a moment the decree of justification went forth from the court of heaven. Jesus says he went down from that house justified. On account of human weakness and our inability to comprehend infinite things, God r resented the thought of all this as being confined to a certain spot. “I will put my name there on Mount Zion, there in Jerusalem, and whenever you go away from that place you go away from the presence of God; but if, when away, you will just look back toward that place my name will be there.” It was so expressed on account of our infirmities. But our Savior divests the thought of such local limitations. He says: “The hour cometh when not at this place (meaning in Samaria), nor in Jerusalem, shall men worship God. God is a Spirit and God must be worshiped in the spirit and in truth.” He lifted up and lifted off and put away forever that idea of locality. In the letter to the Hebrews, the Apostle Paul speaks of the imagery of the subject, such as I have discussed it up to the present moment, and says, “Seeing that we have a High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” So, now, Christians who are enlightened know that God’s name in its power is anywhere, everywhere; that God’s omniscience in taking cognizance of human sin and human need is everywhere, and that God’s love, in exercising itself through omniscience and omnipotence in helping His people, is everywhere, and we are no longer troubled with the thought of this place and that place, but wherever the soul is, wherever the need is, wherever the sense of sin is in the heart, wherever the conscience is smitten, wherever God’s Spirit has sent conviction unto an transgressor’s soul, there is the name of God, n there are His eyes an there is heart and there is His love. Now, the last thought I present in connection with the subject is this: Pray to God first for mercy that is, for forgiveness of sins and prayer to God for grace to help in every time of need, no matter what it is, is a supreme test of Christian character. The man who has never found his way to that throne of grace as a lost sinner, asking God to have mercy upon him, cannot be called a Christian. And whoever claims that he now stands in a state of grace and salvation, and yet did not get to the place where he stands over the road of petition, or prayer to God for mercy, as did that publican, that man convicts himself at once, in the light of the declarations of God’s Word, of not being there at all not at all. You have heard me say it before, and I repeat it with all possible emphasis, that no man on this earth has a right to ever conclude himself to be a Christian who did not seek mercy of God through prayer. “All the nations that call not upon the name of the Lord shall be cast into hell.” And I regard it as the most soul-destroying heresy that ever fell from the lips of man at the instigation of Satan, that there is a way to God, to that Mercy Seat, without asking, without knocking, without seeking, without crying out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” If such a man, what need has he for the throne of grace? According to his doctrine and according to his life, it was a work of superfluity that the Lord God should put His name there, that the Lord God should put His eyes there. Why be there to look if this man is never coming? Why should God put His love there, since this man claims to get at the power and at the omniscience and at the infinite love, without going to the throne of grace? It is one of the best tests that I know anything about of practical Christianity, Christianity every day. You may test it right here and now, you may be your own judge and your own witness, and being a witness at the court of your own heart, I press this question on you: Have you found that Mercy Seat, and are you in the habit of finding it? I put it, that way, for l ere there is no habit of prayer, I do not see how anyone can be a Christian. If your soul does not habitually go to that throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in time of need, then it must rely upon one of these two ‘ assumptions:That you do not need any aid, or that you find what you need somewhere else. You do not find it from God anywhere else, for He says: “My name is there. I put my power there. I put it where the blood is sprinkled. I put it where the High Priest stands. I put it where the atonement is made. I put it where the provisions of grace are garnered. I do not put it outside of Christ and His blood. It is a delusion if you think you have found it anywhere else. If you have had no sense of the need, then I do not see how you can claim to have been under the influence of the Holy Spirit of God, for that Spirit does bring that sense of guilt and condemnation, and does bring into the heart that sense of helplessness and powerlessness and want, and if you have not wanted it, and if you think you have found the strength anywhere else, it argues a delusion, a delusion of the devil. I sometimes, for an hour at a time, sitting perfectly still, generally at night, have silently fastened my mind upon this thought: At any hour of the day or night His name is there, His eyes are there, His heart is there and for any kind of need, I do not care what, and any kind of extremity. I do wish you would get the thought of the throne of grace before you in its richness, in its power. O bow many men have tasted its sweetness! How many people who felt that they were standing on barely ground enough to uphold their feet, and the dirt crumbling away; how many people have felt that they were actually sinking down into darkness beneath the angry frown of God, with a weight of sin on them, and hell from beneath moving to meet them, and have cried out, “God help me; God be merciful to me, a sinner!” And His name was there, His power, His omnipotent power, was there, and the brand was plucked from the burning, and the fire was quenched in the blood of the Lamb, and it was exhibited in triumph before the Court of God, and the question asked: Is not this- a brand plucked from burning? See how close it was to hell. See where the flames had commenced to take hold upon it. See where it had commenced to crackle under the quenchless fires of eternity, and at the last moment the eye was turned toward the place where the name and the eyes and the heart of God are, and the petition was sent up to heaven. I do not hesitate to say to you today, with all the earnestness of my soul, that no extremity excluded one from that Mercy Seat. Even though the portals of hell are opened and you have lifted your foot to step inside, if there you will turn around and read the writing, “Ask and it shall be given; knock and it shall be opened unto you; seek and you shall find,” and there lift up your hands and cry, “Lord God, for Christ’s sake help and save me,” then the salvation that found Jonah at the depths of the ocean and at the roots of the mountain, will find you at the gate of hell, and bring you from that deep and dark descent by a sudden exaltation to the heights of the glory of heaven.