In this sermon, the preacher discusses how God, in His wisdom, has allowed the world to be under occupation by foreign soldiers. The preacher uses the book of Romans to explain that the creation itself is groaning and in pain due to this occupation. However, the preacher assures the listeners that God's wise plans will be carried out and that He will deliver creation from corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. The sermon emphasizes that despite the current state of the world with its destruction and ignorance, God will send His Son to bring peace and restore beauty to the earth.

I am to speak tonight on the Wisdom of God, and I'll read a selection from the scriptures, telling you where they are. There'll be six verses, or six parts of verses. Proverbs 3.19, The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath he established the heavens. Jeremiah 10.12, He hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. Romans 16.27, To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Job 12.13, With him is wisdom and strength. He hath counsel and understanding. Ephesians 1.8, He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. And then in 3.10, he speaks of the manifold wisdom of God. Now, you will notice that by uniting one word to another word, we have succeeded in the wisdom of language. In getting another word, for instance, we take the word knowledge, science, and we unite it to the word omni, meaning all, and we have omniscience. We take the word power, potency, and we unite it to the word omni, and we have omnipotence. We take the word presence, and we unite it to the word omni, and we have omnipresence. But when we come to the word wisdom, the word makers just neglected, they never got around to making such a word. We haven't any such word as omni-wisdom. There is no such word. We have to say all-wisdom, or use some other adjective, or shift the language around somehow, because we simply don't have a word. You know, we have how many words is it in the Webster's? Something like 250,000 words, and yet when we want a word, we have to make one. And so I shall not make a word tonight, but I shall simply say that God is wise, and if God is infinite, then God is infinitely wise. Anybody can see why that would be true. Now it tells us here in the first three verses which I read, that the Lord, by wisdom, hath founded the earth, understanding, established the heavens, and stretched out the heavens by discretion. That is, there is wisdom, understanding, and discretion. There is God by wisdom founding. There is God by understanding, establishing. There is God by discretion stretching out. There is wisdom founding the earth, and understanding, establishing the heavens, and discretion stretching out the world. Now that seems to be, those are a few verses out of very many that the Bible gives us about the wisdom of God. Now we begin with faith in God. As I have explained a number of times, we do not reason in order that we might believe. We reason because we already believe. If I have to reason myself into faith, then I can be reasoned back out of it again. But faith is an organ of knowledge, and what I believe I know, if it's divinely revealed. And when I know it by faith, then I reason about it. So we begin with faith in God. We do not offer proof that God is wise. Nothing that I shall say tonight attempts to prove that God is wise. If I were to try to prove that God is wise, the embittered soul would not believe it anyway, no matter how perfect in convincing the proofs that I might bring. And the worshiping heart already knows that God is wise, and does not need to have it proved. So I shall not attempt to prove anything, but begin with the statement that God is wise. Now we don't ask God to prove his wisdom. We believe that God is wise because God is God. And any demand that we might make on God for proof would be an affront to the perfection of the Deity. If you were to come to me after this service, as sometimes happens, and ask me for some proof of what I have said, or check me on something that I said that was not so, some historic reference, some allusion to literature or history, then you would not insult me because I am only a man and I can make mistakes. But if we go to God and ask God for proof, we are affronting the majesty which is in the heavens. And to think low of God is the supreme degradation. I want you to get that, to think low of God is the supreme degradation. It is necessary to our humanity that we grant God two things at least, wisdom and goodness. The God who sits on high, who made the heaven and the earth, has got to be wise, or else you and I can't be sure of anything. He's got to be good, or it could be a hell and heaven a hell and hell a heaven. We've got to grant goodness and wisdom to God, or else we have no place to go, we have no rock to stand on to do any thinking or reasoning or believing. We must believe in the goodness and in the wisdom of God. And if we do not believe in the wisdom or goodness of God, then we betray that in us which differentiates us from the beast. We betray that in us which was once made in the image of God. Now I say that we assume, we begin with the assumption, it's not simply a guess, it's not a hope, it is a knowledge that God is wise. But somebody says, Mr. Tozer, how is it if God is wise? Then will you please explain if God is good and wise? Will you please explain polio and prison camps and mass executions and wars and all of the evils that are upon the world? I know friends that lie suffering in hospitals and people that go about with one leg and go about partly deaf or totally blind. And if God is good and God is wise, say the critic, then will you explain how this thing could be? Well, let me answer by an allegory. Let us say that a man is very, very wise. Let us say that he's not only wise, but he is rich to the point of having about all the money there is. And let us suppose that he decides that he wants to build the most beautiful palace that ever has been built in the world. So in some little country, say in Europe, he gathers together, because he's able to pay for it, he gathers together the finest artists and architects, the finest designers that can be found anywhere. He combs the nations of the world and buys the top brains and the top genius and the top talents of the world, brings them there. Then he says, now I have so many hundred million dollars to put at your disposal. Money is no object. I own, I have vast holdings in Canada, in the United States, in Germany, in Australia, and around the world, and money is nothing. Make any demand and I have it. Now what I've conceived is this. I want the most beautiful building in all the world. I want its floors to be gold. I want its walls to be jasper. I want its appointments to be carved ivory. I want it to be studded with diamonds and rubies. I want it to be the epitome of all that is beautiful, all that is gracious, all that genius can create. I want it to be that. I want it to be so that when it is finished, it will be the talk of all the world. I want from everywhere, from Broadway and Piccadilly Square to the jungles of Africa and Borneo, I want people to talk about that palace. Now go to work. Give me the best that you can give me. And they build it. And they build it. And they pool their wisdom and their genius and they build the most beautiful building, a building that makes the Taj Mahal look like a barn. It's infinitely beautiful, if you could use the word infinite in its proper, in its improper sense. It's beyond all possible beauty, this, this palace. Well then, let us suppose that after a year or so, let us suppose that the political fortunes change and a conquering army comes in and takes over that little country. Let us suppose that the great soldiers who come in, the great, tough, barbarian soldiers with their hobnailed boots, let us suppose that they come in and brutal army officers, and let us suppose they care nothing about beauty, they care nothing about art, they care nothing about the diamonds and gold and studded walls, they care nothing about it. Let us suppose that they, that they put their horses in those rooms and they, let us suppose they sit on the floor and throw beer cans all over the place and make a wallow out of it, all over the place, a wallow out of it, and dirt and, and, and old rags and filth of every kind fill the place, and the man who owns it just fled into exile for his own safety, and all the artists who were gathered in there to make it are gone to the farthest reaches of the world to hide away, while the heel of the barbarian treads down the little land, and somebody passing by whispers to somebody else, there's the palace, there's the great palace, there's the wisdom, there's genius, there's talent, there's beauty, there's wealth, there's art, there's architecture, there, there's painting, there's sculpture, there is the greatest, greatest concentration of universal beauty known in the world, and the person says, well, it doesn't smell like it to me, and it doesn't look like it to me, it's a pen, it's a, it's a dam, it's a ghost nest, what do you mean it's beautiful? The man said, just a minute, just a minute, wait, wait, there's been a war, and there, this, we're an occupied country, wait, and after a while the fortunes of war change again, and the nation that conquered is driven out, as Germany was driven out of France and out of Belgium and out of the other little countries, and let us suppose that these bestial and brutal men were driven out and the rich man comes back from some faraway retreat and says to his, his artists and his architects and his sculptors again, now, let us go to work on this, let us clean it up, let us, let us begin at the bottom and let us go to the top and let us clean it and put it back in shape again, and after a year or so of working on it, it stands one time more shining in the sun, the epitome of all beauty and the essence of all that man can possibly do, and once again, round the world, the newspapers and the television and the radio and the lectures talk about it and the preachers use it for an illustration. It has been seen once more that this, after all, is the most beautiful thing in the world. Once there was someone named God, God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and he turned his mighty wisdom loose in the making of man and he said, let us make man in our own image, then he made a garden eastward in Eden and he put man in it and he said to man, I'll make you a health meat and he put man asleep and from his ribby, from his breast he took a rib and made a woman and said, this will be your mate, your wife, and he called her name Eve, and then Satan came into the garden eastward in Eden and wound himself and twined himself about the trees of the tree, the limbs of the tree of life, and he began to whisper his insinuations against God. And then came the fortunes of moral war changed and Satan came in and took over and man sinned and betrayed the God who had made him. And that which used to be the most beautiful of all gardens, the most lovely of all worlds, populated by the most radiant of all creatures, made in the image of God, is turned into a goat's nest and turned into darkness. Darkness, this man down here can tell you, he's seen the steamy edges of it, the bestiality of it, more even than we. And so the critic walks about as the two imaginary friends did by the palace and they say, you tell me that a wise God made this goat's nest, you tell me that a wise God made this polio and made these prisons and made these awful cities. I was down in New York three days last week and I was glad to get out of it. The newspapers were saying it's a jungle, it's a jungle, and the chief of police was quoted as saying, I wouldn't let my daughter walk on the street, a jungle. And then somebody says, now you tell me this is an evidence of the wisdom of God, this jungle that you have here. I said, just a minute, just a minute. God in his great wisdom and in his providential dealings with his world has allowed foreign soldiers to occupy. And this epitome of all beauty, this flying ball we call the earth that rolls around its orbit, this glorious home of the creature made in the image of God, is now under a cloud, now under a shadow. And it tells us in the book of Romans that in the eighth chapter tells us that we are, that we are waking. The creature was made subject to vanity not willingly, but by reason of him who was subject to the same in hope, because the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and traveleth in pain together until now. So by my allegory I have explained how God almighty is wise, and that God's wise plans will be carried out. But that God in his wisdom, wiser than we, has allowed for little time the occupation. And the world we live in is under occupation. The world we live in, with its cyclones, its tornadoes, its tempests, its tidal waves, and its forces of destruction, this is under occupation. And the soldiers of the devil march up and down in it, and with their boots and their ignorance and their lack of appreciation, they catch God's beauties and destroy it. In the state of Pennsylvania where I was born, that fairyland that you've driven through it, you know how beautiful it is, rolling hills and splashing streams and waterfalls and meadows and all the lovely forests. You know how beautiful it is. Well, men loving money for a little bit of wealth have gone in there, in near where I lived when I was a boy, and they have done what they call strip mining. They have gone in and instead of digging into the hill to get the coal, they stripped the top off of it and got the coal from above. And I have seen as though nature were weeping. I have seen as though the whole world were a graveyard. I have seen thousands of acres of the lovely hillsides, green and beautiful, that I knew as a boy, lying wounded and bleeding under the bulldozer and the plow and the other great instruments that they had used or tools that they had used to tear nature apart, to get out a little bit of her treasure that they might make a little more money and have a bigger swimming pool and a larger yacht. But you think that God Almighty has surrendered and given up and gone into some vast imperium to be known forever? No. God says, I'm running it, and creation is groaning, groaning under the plow and the bulldozer, groaning under the heel and the pressure of the foe. But the great God Almighty one of these times is going to send his Son from heaven with a shout and the voice of the archangel, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and neither of our lives shall be changed and raised and glorified and made into the image of God. And he's going to clean a clean house down here and send his Holy Son back, and there shall be peace from the river to the ends of the earth, and where the dragon lay there shall be roses blooming and fruit of paradise. You'll see that God was wise. You're going to have to be patient and go along with God for a little while because we're under occupation. Well, wisdom. Now, about wisdom. What is wisdom? Well, wisdom, to define it, is the skill to achieve ends the most perfect by means the most perfect. And both the means and the ends have to be worthy of God. So God in his wisdom has the skill to achieve the most perfect end by means the most perfect, and the end and the means have to be worthy of God. Wisdom is the ability to see the end from the beginning and to see everything in proper relation and in full focus, and to judge in view of final and ultimate ends, and to work toward those ends with flawless precision. God Almighty must be flawlessly precise, and he must do everything. God doesn't bumble. He used to say, you know, what did the British used to say about themselves? They say they muddle through. Yes, that's a good phrase. The British used it of themselves. They said, we muddle through. Well, they get through somehow, but it's muddling. They play it by ear, you know, hoping for the best and taking advantage of situations. They do well. They've done well for the last thousand years, but it's muddling through. They said about the state, the Secretary of State before this one, they said that he, and the second one before this one in the United States, they said that his foreign, he carried his foreign philosophy, he carried it in his hat. All his plans for his foreign relations, he carried them in his hat, in his briefcase. Well, that's the way we have to do it. But God never worked that way. God worked that way. It would prove that God didn't know any more than we did about things. But God works with flawless precision because God sees the end from the beginning, and he never needs to back up. Did you ever notice that our Lord Jesus Christ, when he walked the world, never apologized? Did you notice that he never got up and said, no, I'm sorry, boys. Yesterday when I was talking, I misspoke myself. And I said this, and I meant that. Never. Because wisdom was divinely incarnated in the voice of a man, and when he spoke, he said it right the first time. He never had to apologize. I've had to get up and explain. I've even had to get up and publicly tell the people I made a donkey of myself a few times, because I'm just a man, you know, just me. But Jesus Christ never said one time, now listen, I'm sorry that I left the impression yesterday. I didn't mean to leave that impression. He always said it right, because he was God. And he never apologized, never explained. He said, this is the way it is. And then they either got it or they didn't. And if they didn't, why he told them a little more, but he never backed out on anything that he had said, because he is God. Now I notice that wisdom in the Bible is different from wisdom on earth, in that wisdom in the Bible has a moral connotation. It is high and holy and full of love and pure. And the idea of shrewdness or cunning is never found in the scriptures, except when attributed to Satan or evil men. But wisdom, when attributed to God or good men or angels, always means wisdom, a skill to achieve up on a high, pure, loving level. And there's never any shrewdness or craftiness in it. Now, God being wise, God has to be all wise. God couldn't be a little bit wise. If I thought that God were only a little bit wise, or even 90 percent wise, I'd never sleep tonight. Never would I sleep tonight. Usually I get the 10 o'clock news. And if I were to get the 10 o'clock news and I were to hear what they're doing in the Congo and hear that the soldiers of the enemy had spilled over and broken the lines, as we heard yesterday, of the southern part, if I knew those things and I believed that God were only partly wise, I'd never be able to sleep and I'd lose weight. And I worry myself into a state of shock. But I believe that God is infinitely wise. Altogether, this priest, he founded the heaven by his wisdom. And he founded the earth by his wisdom. And by his understanding, he established the heaven. And by discretion, he stretched out his world. And we don't have to worry about it because God is wise. And being wise, he's infinitely wise. Now, the wisdom of God, then, in planning his world and in planning his creation, in planning his redemption, the wisdom of God, and God being good, God has plans for the highest good, for the highest number, for the longest time. You've heard the word opportunist, haven't you? I hate that word, opportunist. I don't hate people. I hate things that do. I don't hate a cringing, little lick-fiddle, palm-licking, opportunistic preacher. I don't hate him. I couldn't hate him and be a Christian, but I hate the cringing, crawling, slimy way he lives. And I don't like opportunism. Somebody, they don't think about next year or next eternity. They think only about next time they put in their report, next time they send a report into headquarters, next time they're called somewhere else. And so we work just for the time being. God always thinks of the highest good. And he thinks of the highest good for the greatest number. And then he thinks of the highest good for the greatest number for the longest time. God always thinks in terms of chains of young, chains of eternity. And when God plans to bless a man, God takes that poor little time-cursed man in his hand and says, Son, here, I breathe into you, and I breathe into you eternity and immortality and endlessness. And I let you share my endlessness. Oh, if you knew how long you are privileged to live and to be with God, you'd rejoice with me. For God Almighty has planned that you shall not only enjoy him now, but you shall enjoy him for all the infinities to come and all the eternities to come. And it's for the greatest number, and it's for the highest good. Now, sometimes churches and boards do things because it'll get a little more money or a few more people in, but it's not for the highest good of the people. I say every church should run for the highest good of the people, even if they do seem to flop. Work for the highest good of the people and work for the highest good of the greatest number of people and work for the greatest number for the longest time, and that's the way God has done it. Now, let's look at the wisdom of God and where it is revealed. And let us note again, remember that allegory. Let us remember that what I'm telling you now can be disputed by unbelieving men. They will walk by the palace beautiful that now is a goat's nest, and they will say, You can't prove to me that the God who made this palace beautiful you're talking about is a wise and a good God, because there's too much pain there, too much crime there, too much sin there, too much filth there. I repeat, God Almighty is running his world, and the day will be when God will lift the cloud off the world and shining worlds everywhere shall gather and admire and say how wonderful God is for he made these things and for his pleasure they are and were created worthy as the lamb that was slain to redeem us for he has redeemed us from all nations. We shall be admired and God shall be admired in us. Now, in the creation, I think I have talked enough about that. I believe that God in his creation made the world the best that it can be made. I believe that everything is the best that it can possibly be. I don't think it can be improved in any way. And then in the incarnation, when God sent his son Jesus Christ into the world, you know, there's a lot of argument over the incarnation, but I never like to argue about it. Oh, my brother, have you noticed that when God did his awful works, his majestic works, he always did them in the darkness? You remember that it says in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and God said let there be light and there was light. Back there in the darkness God was doing some wonderful, awful, terrible, glorious things as much as to say I don't even want angels to serve him or archangels to see what I'm doing. Then when God would incarnate his son and bring him into the world of man, he did not send him down out of heaven shining like like a meteor to startle the world. He formed him in the sweet darkness of the virgin womb unseen by mortal eye. The bones were formed in the womb of her that was with child. As much as God were saying in mine infinite wisdom I am incarnating my eternal word in a man in the form of a man and nobody will see my mystery and they never did. When he was nailed on the cross there the darkness settled down and there was darkness over the earth. When he was lying there hanging there twisting and writhing in death for you and me, darkness was settled down like a cloud upon him. As though God were saying you can't see him I won't even let you see him die. I'm doing my wonders of atonement in the darkness. And when the atonement was done and he said it's finished God lifted the night and they took him down and put him away in a tomb. When they came to see him rise he was already risen. When they came a long while before day when it was still dark he was not there but was risen. So everything that God has done he's done in the silence and the darkness because his wisdom is such that no man could understand it anyhow. So remember it in redemption Christ was crucified. Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God said Paul we seek the wisdom of God in the mystery the hidden wisdom which was ordained before the world and to our glory. And in salvation God requiring us to repent and believe somebody can challenge that. Sure they can challenge that. This is done by the wise counsel of God and the consummation to the intent he says that unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be made known the wisdom of God. So remember that in all of this the all wise wisdom of God is being revealed. Now I think we've established what we're trying to teach here. Now let's make an application of it and say that the crux of your life lies right there. It doesn't matter whether you know this little wisp of systematic theology or not that isn't the point. The point is that it's either got to be God's wisdom or yours. It's either got to be God's way or yours. All you and I have lived and hoped for and dream over in the hours that we can dream. People used to dream but they don't dream so much anymore because they have too much to listen to and see and read. But in our deep heart of hearts we hope and dream life and safety and happiness and heaven and immortality and the presence of God and we all dream about it. But don't worry and don't be fooled. It lies right here whether you're going to accept this wisdom of God the ultimate wisdom of the child God as revealed in the scriptures and in his providential working in mankind or whether you are going to take your own way and go your own way. The most perfect definition of sin that I know of is given by Isaiah 53 6. He says all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone to his own way and the turning to our own way is the essence of sin. I turn to my way because I think it's a wiser way than God's way. God says to some businessman tithe of your money tithe of your income this year and the businessman says oh God I can't do it I can't do it. God says tithe it son and he says I can't do it because if I do it I can't pay my tax and God says tithe it son and he says I can't do it God and he doesn't. The next year the next year he doesn't make as much and so he teeters out why because he's not being God. Some young lady starry-eyed with human love looks at that big fellow that she loves so much and wants so much but he's a sinner and he has no intention of being anything else but a sinner and she's a born-again Christian and she goes to God and throws herself down on her knees in her bedroom alone and cries oh God oh God what shall I do and the voice within her says why you know what you're to do shall not be unequally yoked with unbelievers what fellowship hath light with darkness and she leaps to her feet and says no God I can't pay that price it's too much I'll win him I'll win him I'll somehow win him and so compromising she takes her wisdom against God's wisdom and she marries the guy and he hasn't more than married her until he refuses to go to church at all and her life becomes a hell from that hour on and five years later two or three children and a broken heart and a husband gone she comes to a pastor and says pastor what can I do the decent pastor not wanting to hurt her feelings doesn't remind her that there was a time back there when the wisdom of God said don't marry him and she said I know better than you God and so everywhere in our lives this is the crux of our life this is the difference between revival and a dead church this is the difference between a spirit filled life and a life that isn't spirit filled who's running it whose boss whose wisdom is prevailing the wisdom of God or the wisdom of man and all the providential dealings of God with me I must take my stand and decide that God's way is right God's way is right when things seem to go wrong with me instead of believing they're going wrong I believe they're going right I take Romans 8 28 and I say that all things work together for good to them that love the God of the called according to his purpose and I've got to decide whether I shall do my way or trust blindly in the wisdom of God if I trust blindly in God's wisdom God will lead the blind by a way he knows not he will guide him in paths where he's not been he will make bake and make darkness light before him and crooked things straight and he will lead him through and when he has tried him he shall come forth as gold and God will lead him into a rich place and make him rich with treasures that can never die but if he wants his own way the Lord will let him go his own way and there's Christians whether we insist on our plans and our ambitions and or whether we will take God's way and if we insist upon our plans and our ambitions we imperil everything that we have because we lack the wisdom to know how to do it you dare you daren't run you daren't run your life we got in the plane down in Idlewild I did although plainful but you know how we are we all think of ourselves and I am they you know we were in the plane plainful of us and we started off and it was terribly windy and uh made a newspaper editor sitting alongside of me man middle-aged and he'd flown a lot but he said this turbulence he didn't like the turbulence this turbulence it's strange about this turbulence well I said when we get over this way from the city and get up it'll level off and it did but when we were in that turbulence I didn't jump up and run up ahead and say now listen boys let me take over you know where we'd have been if I'd have taken over we'd have been nose down in Times Square I didn't take over I let the boys have it good-looking fellows going down we ran into turbulence and I saw a fine-looking young fella with a maple leaf on his cap and I said did you just bring in 206 no I said I brought in 215 said 206 right behind us well I said I just wanted to you know what a wonderful job just like just like putting baby buggy down on a rug you know this fine Canadian flyer with his maple leaf just put it down there so neat right in the turbulence two fellas said to the boys said one time to Bailey and me we were we complimented the flyer on his bringing down the plane oh he said it's easy bring him down in the gusts he said just hunt a place in between two gusts and set her down but I don't know whether that's so easy or not but the point is my brother the point is I'm willing to let those boys hunt the gusts I don't want to get up there and say now here let here here here's the gust because I'd be down I don't mind when you're landing you're taking off but when they you're flying up there at 17,000 or 21,000 feet and they say the sign comes on fasten your seat belt I say to myself oh what are we in for now but I have always kept my head and I've never gone forward and said now you two fellas get out of here never and yet we're doing that all the time we're doing that all the time we go to church and we pray and we give our heart to the lord and we sign a card and we get converted and we join the church we get baptized and then things get turbulent we run and say lord let me run this thing that's why we're where we are and that's why we're in such difficulty that's why we're that's why we're messed up so much in our christian lives because we're not ready to ready to let god run his own world and let god run our world towards let god run our family and our business and our home and our job and our everything the wise god who always thinks of your highest good for the longest time and always does what he does with flawless precision seeing the end from the beginning never making any mistakes and never asking anything you can't perform and never asking from you anything you don't have and never making any unfair demands but knowing your flesh and knowing you're like the flower of the field and having a heart of compassion always when he commands he gives you the power to obey the command always you can trust this kind of god the difficulty with us is we don't trust god we don't and because that we don't as in the general and because we don't we're in the fix that we are ah are you going to turn everything over to the infinite love i heard a great preacher one time tell about a man who had gone bankrupt his business had failed and he'd gone into bankruptcy and somebody else had taken him over and owned bought him out and then so friday they bought him out monday he was back sitting in the executive desk the desk sitting in the swivel chair and the man who bought him out came and said who are you said i'm the fellow you stoned this business oh he said you own it i admit that but he says no i bought it you get out of there you're no longer running this you ran it into the ground now i've got i've taken it and he said chased him out of there and took over and so said the great man of god when god takes over a human bankrupt life and says now here your assets won't do you're in debt over your ears i'll take over i got the money i'll bail you out i'll pay your debts i'll fix you up but i'll run your business then the next morning we get blessed sunday night and monday morning we're back at the desk again the holy ghost said who are you you say well don't you know who i am i'm i'm i'm and the holy ghost says no i thought last night the prayer room you you got out of that chair get out of there let me run it god wants to run your world for you sir and you want to run your business in your home and your wife and your children your home and your school and everything you want to do it and you will do it now there's unblessed man the unblessed man you see this congregation is divided into three classes of people the unblessed the uncommitted and the committed the unblessed man is the man or woman or young person who doesn't believe sufficiently in the wisdom of god to trust him to take your life over so you've never given yourself to jesus christ you've never done it you know what means a little and you're not willing to make it now you just don't believe it can be you say i don't believe in this i believe in god all right and i believe christ died for my sins but but i am not ready to to surrender myself and let god run my world all right that's the unblessed man he's out of the fold he's unborn again he's unblessed then there's the uncommitted that's the person who is not a rebel against god particularly who has accepted christ as we say and had some kind of spiritual experience but they've never been willing to turn their lives over they've not been willing to say before god now god you run my life from tonight on take it over from now on not been willing they're hanging in the middle they're the ones that are up and down and up and down out in the country down in the south where i've preached a lot of times such people go to the altar every time a new evangelist comes around they have a kind of a wry joke down there they'll say about a man old brother bone cutter somebody they'll say old brother bone cutter the only way he'll get to heaven is if somebody hits him over the head with an axe just after he's converted because he's sure he's sure to be backsliding because he doesn't commit himself he gets converted you know every time the evangelist comes around which is two or three times a year and he backslides in the meantime those are the uncommitted of course in a place like this where you've had more better bible teaching more bible teaching and better bible teaching you don't do that you say well i'm saved and that's it i believe i'm saved and i'm kept and you got the answers but you're uncommitted and you're man wrote me a letter i got it when i came home from new york read it friday night before i went to bed said brother told you i've just heard a tape of a sermon you preached and the five vows i think i don't know whether i gave it here or not and he said i'm called to preach but he said i've settled it now i am not going to preach until god has done something new for my life he said i've taken my five vows before god and i'm going to hold to them this is the beginning of a new life for me and i am not going to take a pastorate until god has come upon me with power now that's the last i've heard from that's only three or four days two three days ago i trust and you continue but there are so many uncommitted so many students in school uncommitted they play their way through school get good grades fairly good grades by cramming play their way through and there are christians who play their way through life get old playing at christianity not committed then there are the committed ones and always it's the same the committed ones begin to shine when they've committed themselves to the wisdom of god forever satisfied that god shall have his way and that his wisdom will rule them from now on and they won't interfere and get their own heads in the way they begin to shine like the sun you can always tell them down at nyack some generation ago now man said do you know do you know that there are some few students that come in here that are different they're different they seem to have something the rest of us were just good folks but these few seem to have something he said you can always tell it you can they're the committed ones they're the ones that have gone to god and have said something to this effect now god our father my father from this moment on take over my life run it i'll not interfere i'll not complain if it's hard i'll not get discouraged if it seems to fail nor related if it seems to succeed thine be the glory thine be the honor i'm committed lord committed to eternal wisdom committed to thee the one that thinks that my highest good for the longest time and i'm not going to dishonor thee by doubting and you can you can make that you can make that decision just as you stand up and get married just as two people can stand up and say i do i do and get married settle it no matter which directions their emotions may be all over the building they've settled something by a vow so you can go before god this night and you can pull that ragged uncommitted life into full committal and you can say before god not worrying at all about the feeling you have oh god here i say i do god i do god says will thou from this hour forsake all others and take me and you say oh god i do will you trust me will you trust my son to run your life and not try to run it yourself answer i do you answer oh god i do it becomes to you what the bowels of wedlock become it changes the course and direction and relationship of your life some of you wonder why you've listened to preaching from this pulpit and you've yearned and longed but you haven't received because you haven't committed you're not a rebel but you're in the state of non-committed you're afraid are there those of you here tonight that dare to trust eternal wisdom that would dare to say oh god the father excuse and forgive me for doubting thou art infinitely wise and i need infinite wisdom in my ignorance take over my life and be my wisdom take over my life and be my righteousness take over my life and be my sanctity and you will say now god i want to make this vow tonight i want to stand up tonight and say i do i do and make my vows before thee tonight but from here on the knowledge that thou art eternally wise will be the anchor and the whole star of my life it'll work it'll change your whole life and change its whole direction it'll be like putting a foundation under your building it'll stabilize you and strengthen you and do everything for you let's stand