In this sermon, the preacher uses the analogy of a cracked piece of glass being transformed into a beautiful piece of art to illustrate how God can turn our brokenness into something beautiful. He references a passage from the book of Psalms that speaks of being lifted up from a lowly position to a place of honor. The preacher also discusses the importance of both theological and experiential knowledge of God, emphasizing that knowing God intellectually enhances our ability to experience Him personally. He concludes by highlighting God's omniscience, explaining that God knows all things effortlessly and perfectly.

Now I have three texts, and I'm not going to stay by the texts, I'm going to preach all over the Bible. But I read three texts. Job 36, 4, He that is perfect in knowledge is with thee. He that is perfect in knowledge. Perfection of knowledge is attributed to God here. Psalm 147, 5, Great is our Lord, and of great power. His understanding is infinite. And here is the infinitude of God, and his understanding is said to share this infinitude. Then in Hebrews 4, that very familiar passage, Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight. For all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Now these texts say that God's understanding is limitless, that his knowledge is perfect, and that there isn't a creature anywhere in the universe that isn't plainly visible to his sight. But everything is naked and open, nothing shut before the eyes of God. And that's what it says. So I am to preach tonight on the divine omniscience, one of the attributes of God. An attribute, as I have said in a previous sermon, is something which God has declared to be true about himself. God has declared by divine revelation that he is omniscient, that he knows everything. And human reason kneels and does homage before this divine revelation. Now the mind staggers under this kind of truth. Emerson said that if a man were to start the day he was born and read day and night without taking time out to eat or sleep for 70 years, a full lifetime, and stop, he would only be able to read a little section in the British Library, just a little section on one wall of the British Library. And when we consider how much there is to know and how little we know, and how those who know so very much know so very little, I remember that when the great English lexicographer, Dr. Samuel Johnson, was compiling the first English dictionary, he defined a horse's hock as a horse's knee. And of course it wasn't, and some afterward at a party or gathering somewhere, some society lady turned to the great doctor and said she thought she would get a rise out of him, and perhaps that he would give her a long learned lecture. He was known as the most learned man in England. She said, Dr. Johnson, why did you define a hock as a horse's knee? He said, ignorance, madam, sheer ignorance. And he was the most learned man in all England. But he admitted that he was ignorant on some things. Will Rogers said everybody's ignorant, only we're just ignorant on different subjects. And when it comes down to knowing anything, really, I am very discouraged when I go to a library. When I come out, I feel as if I knew absolutely nothing at all, which, if the truth were known, is a whole lot nearer to the fact than anything else that I know. I was on my way out to receive one of the degrees that different colleges, a couple of colleges, have bestowed on me, and I said the only thing that I can see that's learned about me is this pair of glasses. I said they're going to give a degree to a pair of glasses. I still think they do that. The man has his hair slicked back and has a pair of learned-looking glasses. They call him a doctor. But we don't know very much, really. And when we come to the consideration of the great God who knows all there is to know with perfection of knowledge, we stagger under that, I say. And the weight of the truth is too much for our minds. When Isaac Newton, the great English scientist, was an old man, he had been a great astronomer and a great physicist and scientist. And when he was an old man, they said to him, Dr. Newton, you must have a tremendous store of knowledge. He said, All that I know is like this. I remind myself of a little boy walking along a seashore picking up shells. And he said the boy has a handful of shells in his little hand, but he said all around him is the vast seashore stretching in both directions as far as the eye can see. So he said, All that I know is simply a handful of the seashells of knowledge, that's all. But the vast universe of God is filled with knowledge that I do not possess. Now, remember that when we talk about God's all-knowledge, we're talking about what we call a rational approach to God. We're approaching God rationally. There are two ways to approach God, theologically and experientially. A lot of people can know God experientially and not know what I'm preaching about tonight. But it's good to know both, because the more you know about God theologically, the better you can experience God experientially. The English say experimentally, and I say experientially, and I claim I'm right, because experimentally means in the nature of an experiment, and experientially means in the nature of an experience. And I'm talking about an experience, not an experiment. I do not believe in experimenting with God, I believe in experiencing God. So experiential is the word that I'll use, and if any of you dear English people have heard it called experimentally, you'll forgive the dumb American, because I insist that I'm right on that point. Now, this rational approach to God, that is what I can get into my head. You can't get too much into your head, really. And what I can get into my head about God isn't so much. But that's one way to approach God, is through theology, through your intellect, through doctrine. But the purpose of doctrine is to lead you to see and to know God experientially, and know God for himself, for yourself. But until we know God for ourselves, until we know God theologically, we're not likely to know God very well experientially. Now, remember that reason can best think of God in negatives. I think I mentioned this before, but it's good to remind you of it again. The old mystic philosophers and devotional writers say that we can best conceive of God by conceiving and thinking of what he is not. We can always know what God is not, but we can never know quite what God is, because the greatness of God's mind leaves all our soaring thoughts behind. God is ineffable, inconceivable, and unimaginable. Those are long words, but it's good for you to get hold of them and learn them. There would be a lot less pride in the Church if we just knew that God was inconceivable, unimaginable, and ineffable. Nobody wants to talk like that anymore. They want to read Pogo. They say, well, let's sing happy, happy, happy, happy, and then go have a soda and read Pogo. And they expect, of course, to wear a crown as big as a oyster when they get to Heaven, but it's not going to be so, my brother, it's not going to be so. We're going to find when we get to Heaven that we're going to have to . . . It's good that we've been acquainted with some of these things. What does unimaginable mean? It just means that you can't project him, you can't imagine God, you can't think of what God is like. One man I heard about used to sit in a chair, and he'd kneel down in front of that chair, and he'd say, Now, Jesus, you take the chair. And then he'd imagine Jesus on the chair, and he'd imagine . . . I never cared for religious pictures. I don't know what you think about it, but I never cared for religious pictures. I'm always horrified when I go to an art institute and I see Michelangelo's picture of the creation. God Almighty lying on a cloud, an old bald-headed man pointing his fiery finger down at Adam, and Adam coming to life. Can you imagine conceiving of God as a bald-headed old man? I think the artists would have done us a wonderful favor if they had reverently laid down their brushes and never tried to paint the figure of God, because we don't know what God is like. And if you can think it, it isn't God. If you can think it, it is an idol of your own imagination. If you don't believe what I'm saying, read what the Holy Ghost says back here in the book of 1 Corinthians. Here's what he says. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man that is in him. Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God. And I'll say to you, my friends, that you will never know what I'm talking about without the illumination of the Holy Ghost. When we crowded the Holy Ghost out of the church and took in other things instead of the Holy Ghost, we put out our own eyes. And the church is filled with blind men who see not, because the Holy Ghost has never opened their eyes. Lydia could not believe on Christ till the Lord had opened her eyes. Those disciples could not believe on Christ there in Emmaus Road until he had opened their eyes. Nobody can see God nor believe on God until the Holy Ghost has opened their eyes. And when we have grieved the Holy Ghost and quenched the Holy Ghost and neglected him and crowded him out and substituted other things for him, we've made blind men out of ourselves. And even the evangelical church is staggering along blind because we have flippantly believed that we know how to do it. And so we rise and shake a stick at an audience and they all sing, and a lot of the singing is not far removed from rock and roll. And it's the same spirit, the same spirit that causes young people to scream half the night, singing gospel songs. Have you heard of the gospel song fests they have in the States? I don't know whether they ever got over into Canada or not. I hope not. Maybe one little voice up here will help to prevent it. And they're all night long, and all they are is a bunch of sex-ridden, lusty, money-loving, proud, cocky persons who have no knowledge of God at all. Yet they sing about Jesus and the blood of the Lamb and heaven and all the rest. My brethren, we must come to God reverently. We must come to God on our knees. You always see God when you're on your knees. You never see God when you're standing boldly on your feet in full confidence that you amount to something. God, I say, is unimaginable and God is inconceivable. That is, you cannot get it into your head what God is like. We can't visualize God's being. But the rule is, if you can think it, God isn't like that. God is not like anything you know. God is not like anything you know except the soul of a man. There's an old master record, the German saint, who said that the soul of a man was more like God than anything in the universe. He made God in his own image. You can't see a man's soul, and therefore you've never seen anything that is like God. You've never heard anything that is like God. You've never touched anything that is like God, except within your own heart. If God has touched, then you've seen and felt and heard inside your heart. And so God lies beyond our thoughts and towers above them and escapes them and confounds them in awful incomprehensible terror and majesty. This is the God we adore. And it will pay us as Christians, my brethren, to get back to the knowledge of God again, the triune God, God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. To get back that we worship him, talk about him and talk about him reverently and never joke about him and never think anything or any word that is light about him, but put God where he belongs. Now, I say that I have been driven to the use of negatives about God. You know, when you preach on the self-sufficient existence of God, you say God has no origin, and that's negative. And when you preach on God's eternity, you say God has no beginning, and that is negative. And when you preach on the immutability of God, you say God has no change, and that's negative. And when you preach on the infinity of God, you say that God has no limits, and that is negative. When you preach on the omniscience of God, as I do tonight, you say that God has no teachers and cannot learn. And this would stop a lot of praying and cut down the volume of a lot of prayers if we only could find out now that God can't learn anything. The average church deacon takes anywhere up to 20 minutes every Sunday giving God lessons. And God can't learn, my brother, he can't learn because God already knows everything there is to know. And he knows the thing that you're trying to tell him, and he knows it more perfectly than you do. Well, now the scripture takes this negative method, too. Scripture says, The Lord fainteth not, never weary, and cannot lie. It says, Thy the Lord change not. And it says, Nothing is impossible with God. And it says, God cannot deny himself. And all of those things are, of course, negative. Now, if somebody gets discouraged and charges me with being negative in my outlook, well, let me read what our Lord Jesus Christ said here in the 11th chapter of Matthew. He said, At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered done to me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. I cannot know with my head, but I can have it revealed to my spirit by the Holy Spirit. And so my knowledge of God is not the knowledge as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2. He said, When he came unto them, he came determined that it would not be with excellency of speech or wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you. And remember, there was a Grecian city and there were philosophers there. They had their philosophers at any rate, and they thought in the context of Greek philosophy. And Paul was a thinker, too, and a philosopher. But he said, When I came to you, I came not using big words. I came determined to know no one except Jesus and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and fear and much crumbling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. You see, if your faith stands in human argument, somebody is a better arguer can argue out of it again. The man can come along and argue you into something. A bigger man can come along and argue you out of it. But when the Spirit of God reveals truth to your heart and God manifests that truth to your heart, then nobody can argue you out of it. Nobody can argue you out of it. If you know God through Jesus Christ the Lord, nobody can argue you out of it. I've mentioned this before, but when I was a young fellow in my twenties, I used to read more philosophy than I did theology. I used to read more of the books of the psychologists and philosophers. And I would read them by the yards and yards. And I had many, many, many books and read them in long sessions with them and tried to make myself acquainted with what the great minds of the ages have thought. And sometimes I would run into somebody that would have an argument I couldn't answer. And it would make it look bad for the Bible and bad for me. Then I would get down on my knees and I would say with joy in my heart, Lord Jesus, this man got to me too late. I found thee, and though I can't answer his arguments, I have thee and I know thee. And I would have a joyful time of worship on my knees. My head couldn't enter, but my heart was already in. My head didn't know it, but my heart was already on its knees saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Well, from that time later then, I learned that nobody knows enough successfully to contradict the word of God. Nobody knows enough. Some people think they do, but they don't. One man said, Sometimes I'm troubled by the foundations of my faith. But he said, When I'm worried about the foundations, he said, I dive deep down into the Bible and examine the foundations. And I always come back out and shake the water out of my hair and sing how firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent word. You may be sure nobody knows enough to contradict the word of God. Well, now about the divine omniscience, God knows himself. And because according to Paul, God knows himself. He said, The spirit of God knows God, and God thus knows himself. And God being the source and the author of all things that there are and containing all things, then it follows that God knows all things and that God in one effortless act knows instantly and perfectly all things that can be known. That's the logical definition, which some of you students will remember reading. That in one effortless act, God knows instantly and perfectly all things that can be known. In one effortless act. It's good, isn't it, sometimes to be around somebody that can do things easily. They don't have to strain till the muscles stand out in their necks, the cords stand out in their necks. They don't have to do it easily. I like to hear somebody take a high note and hold it. We have a record of Gallo Cucci, the great Italian soprano. And there seemed to be no talk to her voice at all. She'd go way up there, up over the staff and beyond it and up over the top of the book and care up to the ceiling and then threaten to soar away into the blue and never strain one muscle at all. It's nice to know somebody can do something without effort. Most of us have an awful time getting anything done. I've written some books and, boy, it's cost me sweat and blood. But when it comes to God, God does everything he does effortlessly. There's no effort. God never strains. He never says, Oh, this is going to be a hard one. Never, never. God is able to do, as I said before, anything as easily as he's able to do anything else. Because God being infinite or God being omnipotent can do anything as easily as anything. So God, in one effortless act, knows instantly, not a little at a time, but instantly and perfectly all things that can be known. Now, that's why I've said that God cannot learn. And that's why I've said that if we realize that God couldn't learn, we can shorten our prayers quite a little and step up their power. Because there's no reason to have to tell God things that God knew before you were born. God knows the end from the beginning. And he knew it long before it happened. Long before your parents met, God knew you'd be sitting here tonight. Long before their parents met, he knew you'd be sitting here tonight. Long before Canada was a country or long before England was a nation. Long before the Roman Empire dissolved and long before the Roman Empire was formed, God knew all about us and knew exactly everything about us. Knew every hair on our head, knew our weight, knew our name, knew our major, knew our past, knows our past. He knew it and he knew it before we were born. He knew it before Adam was. When Adam walked in the garden with God, God knew all about Adam, all about Eve, all about their sons, all about the human race. There isn't an astonishing thing. God never gets astonished. People get astonished. They say, It's astonishing, this thing. This thing astounds me. God never astounded because God already knew it, you see. And he's never surprised because he already knew it. You can take a bishop or a cardinal or a pastor or a doctor or somebody and he can turn a corner, you know, and get the surprise of his life. But God never turned a corner and got surprised. For a simple reason, God was already around that corner before he turned it. And God already knew before he found out. You know what I mean? God knows all things. Now, it's nice to sit down and talk things over with God. I know that. The Psalms are full of that and the history of the saints and the biography of the saints and the hymns. It's good to talk to God. And in that sense, we talk to God about things he already knows. This idea of giving God lecture, I never did believe very much in it. I remember once of a man down in the States getting converted. He was a bum. That is, a hobo, a tramp, and a no-gooder. He never paid income tax because he never had any income. And he got converted. He really got converted. And they got to pushing him around, you know, and pushing him up and pushing him up. He was a big shot. He was called here to testify and he was called there to testify and he got a good suit and two shirts. And it went to his head. So he took a few lessons, you know, from the theologians and from the pastors. So one day, one day he got up to pray and he said, Oh, thou that sitteth upon the circle of the universe. And one of his pal bums who had been converted along with him grabbed his coat pail and said, Tell him you're a tramp, converted tramp. Tell him, he said. And so he got, he changed it immediately and got his old voice back and said, Oh God, you know what a sinner I've been, but I thank you. Then he was praying, you know. He was praying as soon as he got back to normal. But he got up there talking about the circle of the universe and was still big for him. Too big, altogether too big. I love to hear people pray, but I don't like to hear them pray the same prayers year in and year out, day in, day out, time in, time out. That's why I don't always go to all the prayer meetings I might because I know what they're going to say. Anyhow, and so why not just say as the cowboy did when he wrote his prayer on a card and stuck it on the head of his bed and when he got into bed he said, Lord, them's my sentiments and went to bed. And I don't know why, I don't know why I should have to go and spend a half hour on my bony knees listening to some old deacon lecture God for three quarters of an hour. I can't see it. God already knows, Doctor. He already knows, Deacon. He already knows, Pastor. God already knows. He cannot learn. You see, if there was anything God could learn it would mean that God didn't know that before. And if he didn't know it before then he didn't know everything. And if he didn't know everything he wasn't perfect. And if he wasn't perfect he wasn't God. So the God who can learn anything is not God. God already knows all that can be learned, all that there is to know and he knows it instantly and perfectly and without strain and without self-consciousness. He knows it all. Now that's what Paul meant to remember back here in the Book of Romans if I can find it here in a hurry when he said in the Book of Romans about the eleventh chapter he said, Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his counselor? For who hath first given to him and it shall be recompensed again? For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Now there is a picture of God having no counselor. There is another negative expression. God had no teacher. He never went to school to anybody. Paul went to school to Gamaliel and Augustine went to school and Luther went to school. But God never went to school. Who could God go to school to? You ask me. What archangel could God call in and say to him, Archangel, I'd like to get a little information here about this. Why, the President of the United States has his men all out over the United States with their ears to the ground. You heard about the politician that had his ears to the ground burning the midnight oil. And these men who were having their ears to the ground and burning the midnight oil, they're trying to find out what the public wants. They're saying, now what does the public say? And as soon as a politician finds out what the public says, he gets up and boldly announces, them's my convictions. And he gets elected. But he got elected by finding out what the public wanted him to know. Well, can you imagine God calling a star chamber composed of seraphim in and saying, now there's a galaxy out here so many light, billion light miles away. It's kind of got out of my range. I'd like to have you visit it and bring back information so I'll know how to run my universe. I couldn't worship a God like that. I'd pity him. I'd say, what a wonderfully big universe for such a small God. He has to send an archangel out after information. No. God never sends anybody out after information. God has it instantly and perfectly and effortlessly. And God knows all that there is. And God never discovers anything. And he never finds out anything. And he never wonders. And he never seeks information. Now somebody will remind me of that passage back in Genesis. I will go down now and see if these things be true about that city of Sodom. Well, you know why God said that. The God who had made Sodom and who contained all his universe and who knew the end and the beginning, he knew what was so or not. But he was dealing with people. Sometimes our Lord asked people questions, but he didn't ask for information because the Holy Ghost said he himself knew what was in every man. He just asked to draw the man out, you know. Same as you'll go to a five-year-old boy and you'll say, Hey, Johnny, who was the first Prime Minister of Canada? Well, you know already. You're not asking for information. Reminds me of the boy who went to school for the first day. He came back and announced he wasn't going back. And they said, Why? Well, he said, The teacher is the dumbest woman I've ever seen in all my life. He said, Nobody is dumber than all the world. He said, She beats anything I've ever heard of. He said, She knows absolutely nothing at all. She has to ask me everything. And when we're asking questions of people, we're drawing them out. We already know, but we're drawing them out. So God said, I'll go down now and I'll see. Jesus, our Lord, asked questions of his disciples, but he knew already. So God knows. Great consolation to me to know this. God knows instantly and effortlessly and perfectly all matter and all matters and all law and all laws and all space and all spaces and all principles and every principle and all mind and all spirit and all soul. And God knows all causes and all relations and all effects and all desires and all mysteries and all enigmas and all things unknown and hidden. There are no mysteries to God. There are mysteries to you and me. We don't know. Oh, behold, how great is the mystery of Godliness, God manifest in the flesh. The theologians have reverently tried to discover down the centuries how the infinite, illimitable God could condense himself into the form of a man. It's a great mystery we don't know, but God knows and God isn't worried about it. That's why I can live a good Christian life and a peaceful Christian life even though I'm not a man that takes things very easy. I remember two people once that were quoted to me. They were discussing whether to go to church to hear me preach or not. This was years ago when I was worse than I am now. And one of them said, Let's go hear Tolder tonight. And the other one said, Oh, no. He makes me nervous. Well, I don't want to blame them at all because I make myself nervous. But that's physical. That's physical. That has nothing to do with the spirit, nothing to do with the soul. I can rest in peace and I'm not worried about these things that are shooting around the earth. I'm not worried at all. I'm not worried about cruching. I'm not worried about and all the rest of those fellas over there whose names you can't pronounce because God's running his world and he knows all about it. He knows where these men will die and he knows where they'll be buried and he knows when they'll be buried and he knows when old Kay will have his heart attack and tumble over and they'll bury him out of sight. God knows that now. He knew that before Kay was born. He knew that when Kay was a little baby nursing at his mother's breast, a poor little tender Russian baby. He knew that. He knew it before the devil entered into him and made him into the beast he is now. He knew it. He knows it all. God knows all enigmas and all hidden things dwelling in light no man can approach unto. And he knows his people. Now with this I want to bring my sermon to a close, but he knows his people. You who have fled for refuge to him, Jesus Christ the Lord, he knows you. And you're never an orphan. You're never out somewhere and nobody knows where you are. See, a Christian's never lost because he may think he's lost. He may be in the Minnesota north woods hunting deer and get lost. But he's not lost. The Lord knows where he is. And the Lord knows all about him. And the Lord knows about his health. He knows about his business. Is that a consolation to you that our Father knows? He knows it all, the bitter tears, how fast they fall. And that he knows and tempers every wind that blows. Is that a consolation to you? It is to me. It's a consolation to me to know that I know not where God's islands raise their fronded palms in air. I only know I cannot drift beyond his love and care. So now I think that you could relax a lot. Some of you are running high blood pressure and what the doctors call hypertension. It's because you're worried. You don't know and you think nobody else knows. Well, I have news for you. He that is perfect in knowledge is with thee. And he knows. And if you'll trust him, he'll bring you out all right. He is perfect in knowledge and he will lead you through and will bring you out. And when you come out, you will know that everything God did was right. There's a German song. I think Bach wrote it. How does it rhyme? It goes like this. What God has done is rightly done. What God has done is rightly done. It's part of an old German chorale. And surely we can all echo it and say amen. What God has done is rightly done. Now, he doeth all things well. Do you believe it, my Christian friends? You believe that God does everything right and that God's dealing with you right. Some of you married men that you wished you hadn't married. Well, you say, how could that be right? Don't ask me. I didn't say I knew. I only told you that you belong to one who does know. And some of you men have married gals that didn't turn out to be the angel that you thought. My dear old friend Tom Hare, he loves the ladies. That is, he prays with them and prays for them. And every time he goes to, he gets a bunch of old ladies around him. And they are his prayer helper. And he calls them his angels. He's Irish. He calls them his angels. He was down in Orlando, Florida, and they were visiting in the home of an old Swede. And the Swede took Brother Tom to task. He said, Brother Hare, he said, you call the women angels. He said, I want you to know my wife's no angel. He said, if you just knew my wife as well as I know her, you'd know she's no angel. I said, well, maybe she's not exactly an angel, and you may not have the easiest time getting along with her. But listen, big boy, God knows all about you. And he knew that even if it was a mistake, that it's a mistake that God will overrule. You know, God can take nothing and make something out of it. I heard of a woman one time who had a great goiter hanging here on her neck, and she was prayed for and it disappeared. And somebody said, I don't understand it. What happened to it? And the evangelist said, well, all I know about it is if God can make something out of nothing, he can make nothing out of something. And I think that that's a pretty good argument, that if God can make something out of nothing, he can make nothing out of something. And so God can take nothing and make something out of it. And God can take your mistakes, and God can polish those mistakes. You've all heard the old story that the preachers tell about the beautiful cathedral window that was cracked. Some kids or somebody shot into it, BB shots or through pebbles, and it was cracked all over. A beautiful, extensive thing. And they sent for one of the finest artists in the land, and they said, what can you do? He said, leave it to me. And he went to work on that. And he began with these fine chisels, and he began cutting however he did it, that glass. And he made artistic lines, and wherever there was a break, he turned that into a beautiful thing and carried it on around and made a loop, and it was all over. The sun shone in on one of the most beautiful pieces of art glass in the world, and yet it had been cracked to start with. I remember that passage back in the book of Psalms that says, Though ye have lain among the pots, yet shall ye be as doves with wings of silver and pinions of yellow gold. Now what does that mean? It means that a poor dove got down there in among the old cans and broken pots, the old places where there were old rusty automobiles and old mattresses and old junk, you know, that people had lugged out. And somebody shot an arrow up and hit this little dove, and she went tumbling down and landed down there. It wasn't dead, but she was in bad shape. And she waited around there in God's sunshine for a while and picked a few seeds here and there and waited for nature to heal up her wing. And when nature healed up her wing, one day she felt she was ready to go. And the sun was bright and the other birds were up there. So she tried out her engines and said, I believe I can make it. Revved up the motor and off she went. And as she circled around, some woman said, Oh, look at the beautiful dove shining in the silver. He asked her husband, he said, Look at the gold along the edges of her wing. She had just been among the pots a little while before, down in the junk pile. But now she rose by the grace of God into the sunshine. That was David's way of saying that God can take nothing, that He can take the poor wrecks of you and me and can change us and can work on us and make us into doves with wings of silver and gold. Ah, the unblessed man, the man without God. I must talk a minute to such a man, even though there be none present. I must talk to such a man, for you can talk to them again. The first thing is I would say that if there is an unsaved man here, God knows you by name. Isaiah 45, verse 4, says, And though thou knewest me not, I know you by name. God knows your name, and He knows you fully, according to the Psalms 139. And He knows why you are rejecting His Son. And He knows your secret sins that you have hidden. Now that's one thing you may be sure of. You know a person can get away a long time with sins. Have you been reading about... Now listen, you good people, don't tell me any more about how moral you folks are. You are no more moral than other people. I have been reading in newspapers since I have been up here, and I have been reading about men who for 20 years have been robbing their own banks. Have you been reading about those boys? They weren't Americans. They were Englishmen or Irishmen. They were Canadians. And you know, we are all alike, really. You scratch Mrs. Van Snoot, and you will find her maid. All the same, you know. You scratch the doctor, and you will find the man takes out his garbage. We are all alike! All alike! All alike! And so, we can get away with sin for a long time. We can rob our own banks and juggle our books, but one person knows about that, and that's God. And God's heaven is locked, and the key is thrown away as far as that man is concerned until he gets straightened out. And God knows your excuses, and he knows your reasons then, your real reasons that you hardly know. He knows your checkered way, and he knows your light and shade, and he knows the place where you're going to finally lie down. He knows that last place that you're going to sleep. He knows the name of the driver that's going to drive you out to that last place. He knows all about it, and he knows and sees what you don't know or see. He knows why you're not a Christian. He knows why you're not following his son. And I ask you, why don't you put yourself in his keeping now? There is a great hymn called His Ira. It's a great old Latin hymn, a long one, nobody sings it, but I like to read it. And in one place, the writer reminds Jesus Christ, he says, I'll put it in some prose, he said, Lord Jesus, remember, he said, why you came this way. I'm the reason, he said, Lord, because I'm the reason. He talked about the terrible eyes of God and the terrible judgment of God and the terrible day, that day of terror when no dead should rise and judgment set, seat, throne should be set. And he was praying, and he said, Oh, Jesus, remember why you came this way. That's your plea, my brother. No matter how bad you are, no matter how crooked, no matter how deceptive and deceitful, and no matter how you've simulated and dissimulated, you can always go to Jesus Christ and say, Now, Lord, you came to earth, why did you come? And then say, Lord, I'm the reason. And the Lord will take you and receive you to himself. This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. Wonderful news, wonderful news, he receiveth sinners and eateth with them. Our Lord said of him in Jerusalem once, he said, Oft I have stretched out my hand to you, but you would not. As a mother hen calls her chicks in, I've called you, but you wouldn't come. He's called some of you, but you haven't come. Somebody said in prayer tonight in the other room that there were some maybe in this church, and he wasn't criticizing the church, it would be true, I suppose, of almost any church that had never known God. I think it's true. But why not? Remember, you can't tell God anything, and remember, you can't excuse yourself for anything, and remember, your reasons are paper thin, and God sees through them, but remember, in spite of it, God loves you, and God invites you, and God will receive you. And there's no reason why he shouldn't come. No reason. Some of you backsliders hanging around the edge, and there's always some. Your heart's cooled off. You haven't prayed, really prayed, for a long time. Remember Jacob who came back to the altar? Remember the words of John? If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And when I preach on the justice of God, I'm going to show that when a man comes to Jesus Christ in faith, justice is on his side, as well as mercy. So it's the just thing for God to forgive us, as well as the merciful thing. So we're going to sing tonight. And any need that you may have, whatever it is, any need that you may have, you come and we'll pray about it. This concludes sermon number eight. For sermon number nine, next in the series on the attributes of God, please refer to tape number nine.