In this sermon, the speaker discusses the discovery of a stone with a mark on it, which suddenly takes on new meaning and significance. The speaker then mentions a brilliant lawyer who gives a masterful explanation of Mormonism, discussing the concept of God closing the reservoir of spirit in human flesh for testing and perfection. The speaker questions the difference between Jesus and other humans, and introduces the concept of the ultimate touchstone, which determines and governs everything else. The speaker then focuses on David's role as a father and his conversation with his son Solomon, suggesting that this interaction reveals the real unifying factor in God's economy.

In our progress from the first service until we arrive at this point, we've been speaking of the man after God's heart, David, in various aspects, and relationships to the Lord and holding sort of overall the fact that his was the unique ministry of unifying the children of Israel. You remember how the hour finally arrived when he wanted to build the house for the Lord? I think if there's been anything that I've pondered in looking over various individuals, Moses, Joshua, now we come to David, Solomon, it is how they went just this far and yet somehow God at a strategic point uses someone else to pick it up and go on. They went just so far. Moses, you know, he did not enter into the promised land. Joshua led the people in the campaign by which much of the land was possessed but not all of it. Here we come to David and in his intense desire and longing to build the house, the place for the permanent dwelling, as it were, of the Lord, the prophet comes and says finally, no, your son is going to do it. Now, in order to sort of sum up and tie together, I want us to see David in his role in this final time as a father. We're going to see, as he speaks to his son Solomon, we're going to see something that I believe will take us into what I like to call the real unifying factor. Remember we said in our last time together, God is bringing together people, knitting them together with vision, with purpose. But we ask the question, what is it that's big enough? What is it in God's economy that really knits and binds? That which becomes a real unifying factor. I trust not something just of my own to push, but I believe it's something that for some years God has kept burdening my heart. I cannot help but believe as I've gone among the Lord's people now for some 20 years here and there, there's been one continuous groan in my heart, Oh dear Lord, raise up some real fathers of the faith. Some men with a father heart. Some men who will have a father heart towards the children of the Lord. And I don't know, but it seems that apart from that, you never see a family really coming into operation. It takes a father to have a family. And I sometimes wonder if there's any higher unity than that which you find expressed in the proper function of a family. Would you go way back in our horizon now? I always call it framework of reference, but I think horizon's a better term. Would you go back with me in an ultimate horizon? Way back before time. I wish we could catch and continue on in the spirit of the Ephesians. Go way back to the beginning long before the planet Earth has been peopled, before Adam has been placed here. Go back into the very heart of the Godhead itself. There is something of a unity expressed there that's very wonderful. Did you ever think? I maybe ought to approach it this way. Did you ever imagine yourself praying too much to one member of the Godhead as those who make the others jealous? I've had folk at different occasions come and say, sometimes I get worried. I get so occupied with the Lord Jesus, I wonder what the Father thinks. Well, I do have something that I think is quite important that we get a hold of, and it is this. There's a wonderful function of unity that goes on in the triune God. There are people, I think, who would get stalled with the Spirit as though to somehow center around Him. By that I mean to be preoccupied with the Spirit Himself. But if I understand, and I think it's a sense that God keeps pressing, if I understand when we would become preoccupied with the Blessed Holy Spirit, it is always of His determination to say, look, I'm here to reveal the Son. I'm a nameless servant out to get a bride, but look, here's Isaac, Rebecca. Look at Isaac, do you see? And you find over and over again through the Word this preponderance of emphasis that the ministry of the Spirit is to reveal, to lift up, to exalt, to unveil, to make the Lord Jesus altogether the lovely one. Now you know that. So you come to the Lord Jesus, and you begin to behold, and you begin to become utterly alive to Him and His loveliness and His worthiness and all that He is. And do you know what He does? Do you know what He does when you center in, as it were, upon Him? I don't think I'm a myth. But it seems, it seems as though I hear Him saying, look, if you're fixing, if you're focusing it upon me, look, I am a window. If you see me, you're looking right on to see my Father. And oh, oh how the testimony of the Son as He moved among man was continualized. My Father, the words that I speak, my Father. He turns it on continually to Him. And so you get to the Father. Do you know what the Father does? Do you know what the Father does? I hear it in Ephesians. I don't think I'm just reading into it, but I hear Him say, when you would become preoccupied, as though the fixation justified. He says, look, I have ordained that my lovely sons shall have the preeminent place. All that I'm doing, I am doing through Him. And He has given Him a place, a central place. You go read it. All things shall have their summation. All things shall have their fullness, their summation in Him. Is there something in this that it would speak to us of? The Father living to find the fullness extends Himself to where? I can't think of any Father, any true Father, any Father in the fullest, rightest sense. But what this is, His desire and His delight. He lives His life all over again in His Son. That is, He fulfills it. I don't mean making a dentist out of your son now, or something that you never achieved. I know we have a tendency to bring the Father down to some of our limited conceptions of a Father. Well, let's go back. Let's go back and get a glimpse now of He, who from the beginning has ordained and planned such a place of preeminence for His Son. If this be the function that I sense moving within the Godhead, is it not a touchstone? Is it not something for us to reckon upon as we look out and we see that which can be a function among the brethren? Nothing for Himself? Not drawings that were just untruths Himself? What a church it would be, what a group of people, if something of this could really be operating. Do you see? We get a hold, we get a hold of the Spirit of God unveiling the Son. And the Son saying, I am but the wind of the reflection. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. But the Father always turning us out. I've grown for some twelve years, I think, since this began to burn. Oh God, oh God, raise up some Fathers, real spiritual Fathers, not only as regards the home, but as regards the larger fellowship of the household of the saints. Real Fathers. And apart from this, I guess every time I've reacted toward someone in the assembly, the Lord has seemed to say, that's not a father heart, that's not a father heart. Or when I've been too quick to condemn, I've sensed Him saying, Fathers, provoke not your children unto wrath. And maybe we'll get in this afternoon to some of the ways in which we provoke people because there has not been wrought within us this kind of a functioning, a relatedness, you see, deep within. Well, let us turn to the story where we have in 1 Chronicles, chapter 28 and verse 20. And I think I can say what I have on my heart in not too long a period. This afternoon, I think we're already realizing we've had a very blessed time with the Lord. Chapter 28, 1 Chronicles. I want us to get a glimpse of David in this cast as a father. He can't build the house that he longs to build, the dwelling place for the Lord. But he doesn't pout. He doesn't sit back, hurt. What better could there be than to build it through your son, extend yourself. This has been something of what we've been wanting to say all this week. Oh, how you get the continuity from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, right on down, David, and now Solomon. It's something of a wonderful stream. That is a wonderful flow in which the anointing of God and His purpose works to bring about full realization. So we read chapter 28, 1 Chronicles, beginning with verse 20. And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it. Fear not, nor be dismayed. For the Lord God, even my God, will be with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord. Chapter 29, verse 1. Furthermore, David the king said unto all the congregation, Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen is yet young and tender. And the work is great, for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God. Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for things to be made of gold, and the silver for things of silver, and the brass for things of brass, the iron for things of iron, and wood for things of wood. Onyx stones and stones to be set, glistering stones of diverse colors in all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance. Well, he lists all of this. Over in verse 10 we pick it up again. Or rather, verse 9. Then the people rejoiced for that they offered willingly, because with perfect courage they offered willingly to the Lord. And David the king also rejoiced with great joy. Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation. And David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty for all that is in the earth, and in the earth is thine. And thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee, and thou reignest over all. In thine hand is power and might, and in thine hand it is to make great and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee and praise thy glorious name. Well, just wanting to somehow point the fingers, we get a little bit of background now. If there's anything that constitutes a unifying factor, that is something that becomes the means by which God himself expresses a unity. Here in the Garden we have a triunity. Let me go back and see if we can make this practical and maybe this will all unfold what I'm trying to say. I wonder through the years as we have moved among the Lord's people, wondered so often why it is that systems of thought that seem to captivate and control and get a hold of certain groups of people, why these systems of thought are so irreconcilable. Is there an answer? How can we bring God's people into the thing that will be a house unified? A people in which God can really dwell and find the fullest expression of a house. I wonder if you've ever noticed that every individual, maybe he's not conscious of it, but has some controlling touchstone in his life. We all say quite glibly, oh God is my touchstone. By a touchstone I mean God is my beginning point and from him I make all my reckoning. That's quite true and wonderful. But I think before we get through this afternoon we'll see that there's a sense in which to make such a statement is to say something alright, but it's too broad a base. What do you mean by a touchstone? Some years ago I had a plot of ground, some 80 acres, and I was subdividing it to sell lots. I'll not forget, I had never realized before, when you start surveying the absolute importance of a beginning point. That morning when three of the surveyors came out and they began to go over the plot of land, they hunted six hours for the first beginning point at $25 or $30 an hour. You can see why I was eager. The thing that had happened was that the road out in this area, you know some areas, the roads kind of change a little bit and it hadn't been surveyed for a long time. And the cornerstone or the mark that they were looking for was not on this side of the road. Somehow the road had shifted and it was on the other side. The thing that was so strange was this. In going over to the neighbors living out at the edge of the city, in going over there, cutting into his yard, I had often noticed the flat stone over which grass had grown and it had a chiseled mark like a cross. And I had looked at it, I had called it to my wife's attention and we had often said, well that must have some meaning. But it didn't to us have any particular significance. Finally, we did what we should have done. We went down and got some old abstracts from the office and finally discovered that the thing we were looking for was this stone with the mark in it. Suddenly it took on, I'd known about it all the time, but suddenly it took on a new meaning and a significance. Something that had been so commonplace. I'd like to stop here for a couple hours. I believe that there are in all the circumstances of life things about us that are so utterly commonplace and that we know about. And yet it takes something, there's something that happens all of a sudden that brings that which is so utterly common into new significance. Brings it into value and meaning. Are you following me? Well, it only took two hours to finish off after we had a touchstone. But it's quite something. If you start six inches off, you go thirty feet, you're six inches off here, six inches off here. You're just off all the way along if you're off at your beginning point. Your touchstone. Do you see that? I wonder if there aren't some people in the religious world today who pick a touchstone, as we say in God, for their reckoning, but because their touchstone is incomplete, is inadequate, they end up with something less than God really planned or intended. May I illustrate what I mean? I think it has always amazed me how when I begin to talk to certain folks that there's an overshadowing consciousness of one thing in God, one thing about Him that seems to stand out to overshadow other things. I have met, and I think you have met, individuals in whom the sovereignty of God, the sovereignty of God, overshadowed. God was sovereign. Now, we know He is sovereign, and we rejoice in what we understand of His sovereignty, but it's quite interesting that when a person starts with sovereignty in God as the primary or the controlling touchstone, this thing, I'll just get a little of my diagram here before we get too far along. This is what happens. Starting with sovereignty as a touchstone, the first thing we know, we have developed a systematic approach and a reasoning which is going to end us up, I'll use Brother Spark's terms this morning, in a nice little whirlpool. And here we are. Is sovereignty an adequate touchstone in God from which to begin? Is that the primary thing about God that ought to determine and control? If sovereignty overshadows, we get around and you see, the mind is so constituted, the law of the mind is so constituted that we begin to carry it to its ultimate extreme. And if you've ever been in this system of reasoning and all that's involved in it, you know that it has one inevitable end. God, who is sovereign, will do what he wants to do and it brings fatalism just as sure, just as sure as we've hit it. There's no other inevitable end. It brings the fatalism. And this thing as a system, oh, I wish you could pick up the paper down where we used to come from and see some of the ads on the church page. Driving home. I've got you scared now. You say, but God, that's right. Just hold with me a little bit. I want you to see now that we're in God, but we're starting from a touchstone that's going to bring us into some great difficulty. And so out of reaction from the folk who start with God's sovereignty, you have others who pick, whether in reaction or just out of sheer good judgment, they start with another touchstone. Back in the days when Charles Finney came on the scene in New York State, every place he moved you read all about his early ministry. He met folk who were sitting back, what will be, will be. The thing had gone to sea, an ultra-sovereignty, carrying it in a systematic reasoning to its ultimate end. And Finney, as a lawyer, began to cry out for some way to deal with this. So he went back into God. If you've read his systematic theology, he went back and he picked another touchstone. That's all I can call it. He said that God is moral. And from the touchstone of morality, looking out at all that the universe is, he said that there are some things that are right and that limit God. This is a moral universe. God in his benevolence is actually limited by the fact that he's moral. There are some things he cannot do because God is moral. Now, if you've never read it, or somebody hasn't stumbled you with it, when Calvin said that God, without blinking an eye, could cast a million infants that span long into hell, there's something within me that cries out, Calvin, that's not the God I know. I can't accept that. Are you following me? I don't want to get too theological, but it'll blossom a little later, I trust. We'll get out of just plain knowledge. I tell you, if you could realize what's happening, what has happened through the centuries. So, there's something within me that can't help but react. And I look around and I begin to say, God is moral. He's moral. Maybe that doesn't mean much. God has to do what's right. The law of the mind says that there are some things that are right and some things that are wrong. Are you following me? God is moral. This is a moral universe. And you can't put the God that we know into this cast. Well, Finney was tremendous logic. But oh, how in that day when he moved among the utter fatalists and he began to present something of the responsibility of man, the response that man must make. And God began to breathe upon it and he shook some of them out out of that awful fatalism. And so, you have issuing. And of course, it had its roots in the beginning long before long before Finney came on the scene. There's a man by the name of Arminius. You know, you've read about him. Way back, he challenged some of the earlier extremes up here. But here you have another system of thought developing, which makes room for human responsibility, the response of the individual. And it develops into a system which becomes another nice little whirlpool, but by contrast to fatalism, which is, God will do it all any time he gets ready and pleases. Here you have that which is developed into humanism. It's all man. All man. Man's on the throne. You say to me this afternoon, well, Brother Fransky, there's some good things in both. How do you get them married? What do you do? What's the answer? Where do you turn? Is there an answer? I said some two days ago, this has, I guess, been one of the great things that has concerned me since we first began to move out among God's people in longing to seek a unifying factor, something that would bring about a base by which the men could come to move with a larger focus. You see all of the quarreling between the Calvinists and the Armenians. And I've read the books that are out, some of them anyway, on how to get them married, but I've never been satisfied. I never felt like it had much of the depth of revelation of what God has. Well, do you have a system of your own to offer, you say? It concerns me. What do we have in God? What do we have in God that's different from just a touchstone of sovereignty or, let us say, that of morality? Before I get to what I want to say, let me take a couple other touchstones. You don't have to move very far before you sense there are others with a prevailing or an overshadowing consciousness. I meet sometimes individuals who are power conscious. Oh, how the mentality of the need of power has gripped so many folk in religious circles today. And invariably you go back, you find that they have come back to a touchstone in God which produces this sense and this awareness and this need. Someone has said, and I think it is true that all of the major religions of the world go back to God, their God, concept of whatever He is, and they find a touchstone. You ever meet somebody who is sad and the overshadowing awareness they had is that God is spirit? That's their touchstone? God is spirit? That's about all He is? They never come to see Him in personality, but He is some kind of a vague monstrosity, I use the term, His spirit. But that's all. That's all. I want to be very kind this afternoon, but there is sweeping over our country today a people whose primary awareness is that God is spirit, but they do not know Him as we're going to see in personality. He is spirit. And I don't wonder that starting with that as a touchstone, you will hear some of them say on the radio, put your hand on the radio as a point of contact. That's a system of reasoning that has to follow. And it's nothing other than Brahmanism coming over to our country in another form. That's all it is. I've been in some of it, I know. Now, I'm not saying that people have done it out of deliberate eye, but it's quite something when you see that the controlling factor, the underlying thing in the universe is just spirit. It gets down into what kind of power and what kind of form and what kind of atom. And pretty soon the God of the universe is able to project Himself through all atoms and right down to your radio by force. It's a well-organized system of thought. Now, don't misunderstand. I haven't said that somebody is guilty of Brahmanism because out of desire. Don't misunderstand me. But I'm saying that these things all have a root. They have a root. And that root, that source, is some touchstone that we have in God that's overshadowing. And just as surely as you follow it, here is the touchstone, the spirit. Just as surely as you follow it, you'll find some people coming to another little whirlpool. It's an inevitable thing. Well, you're bewildered, I know. You say, Brother Fromke, you kind of lost me, but where would you start in God? What do you think is the proper, what do you think is the scripture revealed as the proper touchstone in God? Which will hold us in balance. Will give proper perspective. And everything else begins to take on the part fit into the whole. Now, you see, the reason I used the illustration I did is because you all know the touchstone. You've walked down the road like I did. You've looked at that stone. You've seen it again and again. You've voiced it in your prayer. And the minute I announce to you what it is, you're all going to say, yes, Brother, I've known that since I was born again. But I would that somehow it could take on new significance in the light of what I'm trying to say. I think that there, let me illustrate it this way. I think that there are many facets in a diamond. We get a hold of all of the various facets. We look at God and we get a hold of maybe the facet of God as sovereign. But it's just a facet. We get a hold of God being moral. But it's just a facet. There are other touchstones I could take. God is a Redeemer. Once man has fallen and needs his Savior, you have the lovely facet of his redemptive work. But if you start with God as being primarily a Redeemer, and if that becomes the overshadowing work and activity, the overshadowing thing, if God is primarily a Redeemer to you, without realizing it, sin becomes a necessity, so he'll have somebody to redeem. And you shift the whole burden of responsibility. All God's primary goal is to get people saved. And that's the blight that's settled down on Christendom today because, now don't misunderstand, we have taken one facet of God and his activity. Our touchstone is God is before, above, and beyond all else a Redeemer. I sat down with a dear brother one day. He said, I wish to go and talk to my daughter, 18 years old. She doesn't seem to have much of a heart and an interest for the Lord. I went to Linda, sat down. I couldn't make much headway. She seemed unconcerned and disinterested. A few months later, something happened to this friend of mine who was a very eager beaver, evangelical, flying here and there in meetings continually. One day he got a call from a pastor, not too far from where he lived. The pastor said, I wish you'd come down and visit me in my office. When he got there, he said, I have a list of a family, some names of family I wish you'd go and visit. They have a desperate need. Mark, being an eager soul winner, he said, I'd be glad to go. Give me the names. Who are they? He said, well, I didn't put the name down. Here's the address. When he looked, my friend looked at the piece of paper. He said, hey, wait a minute. That's my address. You must have a mistake. The pastor looked at him and he said, no, there's no mistake. Three times in the last six months, your wife has been to visit me. She tells me of a husband who is so busy, continually out in meetings, eager to do things for God, but she says they don't have a husband and a father at home. He said, I called you because I'd like to have you visit this particular home that's in such need and maybe stay there a little while with them. Long enough to be a father. I tell you, something began to get a hold. He went home and he began to weep and cry out before the Lord. You know what God showed him? What I'd been trying to say for some months. And he came to me and he said, oh, brother, he said, I see that I've had a touchstone in God that has controlled and seemed to determine and overshadow and for this reason I've been on the go. But I found out who God chiefly is, before, above, and beyond all else that he is. I've got more than a facet, more than a facet. God is the creator. You ever meet a mason who has built a whole religious system around the architectural ability of God? And I tell you, it's quite a, it's quite a system of reasoning. And it's a religion built from a certain touchstone in God. I could go on and list all of the various facets. I mustn't. God is a creator. God is a provider. He's a good God. And he does long to provide for the needs of his children. He's a sustainer. God is sovereign. He's a ruler. He's a judge. God is the redeeming one. A sanctifying, begetting. You can go and take all of the various facets, but hear me. None of these facets become an adequate touchstone from which we can reckon all of the perfect and come to a final picture of what God is really after. One day a friend told me, a jeweler, never forget it. He said as he held a diamond in his hand, did you know that every diamond that's properly cut has a window? When you look in the window of that diamond, you can see all the symmetry, all the relatedness of all the facets By looking in the window, it all takes on symmetry and relatedness. I've been waiting for that illustration. It's just what I needed. I want us to look in a window this afternoon to see that which will give significance and relatedness to all of the facets, who God is, what he is, and why he does what he does. I call it the ultimate touchstone. That which determines and governs everything else and gives it meaning. You say, what is it? What is it? Let me illustrate what I mean. I look at my little boy and my longing to see him grow up as he ought to, and I realize having counseled with others that it's so important at the very beginning stages, at the beginning, to hold a strong, sovereign hand, a tight hand at the beginning. We do it so differently. They're so sweet. They're so innocent. We're so loose. We're so free at the beginning. And only later, when some of that begins to react, do we then begin to exercise a tighter hand. But you follow, in God's own way, in God's own working, it's always in those earliest, earliest years, the tight hand. Very sovereign. Now, the reason I'm afraid of sovereignty as a touchstone in itself is that if I'm primarily sovereign and that's the controlling thing, then I could go out and I have, in a certain sense, the power to break my little boy all to pieces. I'm big enough, strong enough yet, over him, to do that. But I, sovereignty isn't the primary thing in me, nor do I, nor do I let him have complete moral choice to the extreme. I don't give him free reign. There is one thing that conditions my sovereignty over him and my morality over him. Do you know what it is? Let's pick that up. Someone is prone, and of course, you have other factors. You can start with so many touchstones here. Someone says, love's a good touchstone. Let's start with it. Love is a good touchstone. God is love. Oh, that's true. But it's not an adequate touchstone either. Because if you just start with love, you ever see where it ends? You ever see where love ends? Look at the liberal. Look at where love ends. It becomes a wishy-washy, sentimental sort of thing. Love without any guidelines, love without any character, does love for love's sake. Now, God is love, but there is something behind that conditions his love. You follow me? God is life. God is life. There are all of these facets and all of these things. But there is one thing before and above and beyond all else that God is in person that gives meaning to everything that we do. Well, shall we go to the abstract office and find out? You see, I don't want to give you a big buildup, but I know I've been through this so many times. Folks say, oh, what a letdown. I knew that all the time. I've got to make it significant. The reason you need this touchstone, or you'll start with something else or something, well, I've already indicated it. The Lord Jesus came to reveal. One day when Philip came to him, he said, Philip, have you been so long with me? What did Philip want to see? The Father? The Father? And he said, Philip, if you've seen me, you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I'm afraid of any system that starts with less than the Father and his lovely son. Personality is what I mean. Did you ever stop to think that God has given us the most full and wonderful and complete revelation in the person of his Son? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Now, if I'm wrong, I want somebody to tell me. I've asked for at least ten years. I don't want to go on sharing with others. I long, if I know my heart, I long that God will bring about in my own life such clarity that we'll be able to help others to come to that which is truly ultimate in God. But I believe this does something. I'll show you why. As a father, my sovereignty can rightly be limited or governed. It is not unlimited sovereignty. He possesses it, but there's something that limits and governs the sovereignty. What is it? It's Father heart, Father nature. It's what he is as a father. He allows sovereignty just so far, and he says that's sufficient. As a father, he extends responsibility, morality, just so far, but it's limited. It's governed. It's always controlled by something that he is before. When he loves, it's a father that loves. When he moves out to create, the reason for creation is that he will bring to himself one day a vast family. So he creates Earth's sphere as a place he's going to begin it all. And he starts with a son, a created son, when he reaches into the dust of the earth. And he forms Adam and makes possible by capacity that Adam might move from mere created relationship to begotten relationship. But let's stop for a moment all the answers that are solved. Let us remember that all of God's dealing with the human race is through two men, the only created son and the only begotten son. That's very important because there's a host of people today who love to talk about the fact that we're begotten sons and we are begotten, but ours is an indirect beginning in and through Jesus Christ. First time I ran into that, I was out in Salt Lake City, and I've always loved to visit the Mormon tabernacle just to hear the music, the organ. And I've taken the tour through the grounds. One brilliant lawyer who happened to be taking the tour that day was giving a masterful address. I knew that there was something about Mormonism more than the majority of people had realized. And he got into it that day. When he started in his masterful explanation, he said that God had a whole reservoir of spirit in the heavenly. And out of his wonderful plan and purpose, he is closing them one by one in human flesh. We go through this earthly scene down here being tested, improved, and perfected. And as we pass on through, we make the complete cycle back to the reservoir, putting off this body. We go back to the reservoir of spirit. Before we got through, I found out his touchstone that afternoon. And I said, well, what about the Lord Jesus after he dismissed everybody? He always said he was a wonderful man. I said, well, is there any real difference between him and me, between him and the rest of us? He's a begotten son, he said, and we're all begotten. He said that. He said he just had a couple thousand years head start. And he'll always be ahead of us. And immediately it seemed that the Holy Spirit began to say to me, he has a unique relationship with the Father. He is the only begotten of the Father. You'll run into this. There are cults and groups that are sweeping. There are sonship groups. I run into them all the time. They read certain pages in a chapter and I get a whole barrage from them. Because they're, well, we won't go into it. Don't forget that God has dealt with the human race through two men. The first Adam, the only created son. And our relationship to him is the way of created life. But oh, there's the only begotten son and our begetting is in and through him. It's a very wonderful. So you see, once you begin to get a touchstone, you move back to see that it is the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. But you start with personality. God is more than a vague monstrosity. I've been wanting to say one thing this afternoon and I'm going to close. There's a unifying factor. I have seen men in the last five or six years who tried somehow to bring Armenians and Calvinists into a lovely wedding. Tried every possible way to bring about a reconciliation. I don't believe there is any. I believe God's answer in the Scripture is to take us back to who he himself chiefly is before, above, and beyond all else. When you start where Paul did, not with God in creation, but you go back before the foundation, you go back, way back, because you have it pictured in Ephesians. Paul says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You get a hold of the loveliness of this relationship, this relatedness, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. You bring it down into practical working of our relatedness with one another. You have the cross at the very heart of it. Long before the cross is enacted in history, it's an operating principle. Well, you have a seed. Let it unfold. I'm thrilled when I see David fulfilling, looking on to the fulfillment of all he desired in his son. My heart begins to crowd, oh God, the selfishness of men who are doing something for themselves, unto themselves, but never quite realize how the fullness and completeness of all can be expressed in many sons, that is, lives in which they are multiplying themselves. Mother, you may be so eager to have child evangelism classes, run out and do some things for God, but oh, Mother, what a privilege is yours in multiplying yourself in the little ones at your feet. We need spiritual mothers, spiritual fathers. And I see it in David, the man who got so close after God's heart that he begins to have a father heart. Of course, it isn't fullness, but there's a dim reflection. And this is why my final words, I just If we're looking throughout the areas around about for families of living expression, lives that come to the place where they're a household of the saints, there's going to have to be some fathers. May God make a father out of you, a mother out of you. Dear Lord, only thou can interpret what we're trying to say. How wonderful it is when once we behold this relatedness, this function in the triune God, and it lays hold of us. Calvary is more than, the cross is more than just a historical place. It becomes a working power. It becomes an operating principle. We do nothing for ourselves, but unto thee, unto him, you make it to be real, dear Lord. We'll be sure to give thee the praise and the honor and the glory, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.