In this sermon, the preacher discusses the importance of knowing God and being in a relationship with Him. He emphasizes that God created the heaven and the earth and all things in it. The preacher also talks about the concept of the "deeper life" and how it is found in Jesus Christ. He encourages listeners to seek a deeper understanding of God and to remove anything that hinders their relationship with Him. The sermon emphasizes the need to know God and the significance of the image of God in humanity.

Let's start with Philippians, beginning in verse 7 and ending with verse 15, where Paul begins with what could be described as the loss of a child. And go on down to verse 11. Nothing's going right with me, but that's the truth. And on down where he says this line of news, I might return unto the resurrection, out from the dead. And not to go ahead already, for it is perfect, but I follow after it. And after him, and on down, till I touch forward toward thee, Christ my calling, God and Christ Jesus. And then in verse 10, that I know him. What's important, I want to talk about this, that I know him. In the first place, I believe that God created the heaven and the earth and all things that are therein. Every good Jewish, can I have your name? I believe that God made the heaven and the earth and all things that are therein. And I'm going to believe that he made it. And he made each one his kind of life through this earth, which he chose for us. And when he adjusted that kind of life to an environment which he chose for us. And the living creature stays in its own environment and lives the kind of life God gave us. That creature still stands the perfect for which it was made. And God being who he is, there can be credit any creature higher than this. He still stands that for which God made him. Now that's all. You can't go higher than that. He's in your heart. You can write their names on the walls of famous buildings. You can give them all sorts. Noble prizes, and sacred prizes, and every kind of prize. Or you can canonize them if you wish. It's all been told and all been said. You cannot say any more of this creature than this. God gave him a certain kind of life. Gave him an environment to inhabit. And he has lived in that environment and confidence has lived the kind of life God gave him. Now that's all. The angels and archangels and all things can go any farther than that. Prophets can't go any farther than that. Now, it says here that they're not supposed to stay. But let their own habitation. God has reserved in every nation's kings under judgment of the great day. And here we see a certain order of beings, or a certain number of orders, that let their place to sink. That is, they left a place for which they had been created to warn anybody, any intelligent creature, any moral creature anywhere, to leave this proper sphere and state, will no longer make good feet and paint, because they're not so tame to any for which they were made. Now that I say generally, of any living being anywhere, incidentally, but in history, you and I are willingly part of the system, because we're scared stiff. We're afraid to lose our imagination, and we're afraid to believe what the Bible teaches us. The Bible talks about angels and God's one, and the seraphs and the cherubim, and the watchers and the holy ones, principalities and powers, and we and I insist on people, that's all. We are afraid to rise, our faith-filled imagination encompassed in the wonder of the full universe. See, now God created man in his own image, and of no other creature is this spoken. And in the scriptures, there's God who said he ever created the seraphs in his image, nor the cherubim, but all of his creatures in his image. It seems all right when you say a principality of power, but it seems that God made man in his image. God said affectionately, let it all in its full in the image of God created man. And therein came the blessed life of man, that came to live in his soul. So that, you know this, you can take this out, make a slide, make a playlist, and make a radical, I'll do it, but I'm sure you won't. But as originally created, man was more like any other creature that ever was created. As originally created, man was more like God, because of what God said that he made man in his own image. And a wise old German Christian said this, nothing in the universe says much like God is being told. Now as far as he took for granted, I admit that man's soul was sinful and lost. And in that sense, sin is not like God in the soul, as sin is itself God, but there is something basic in human nature and in the soul of man that can become more like God than himself. I wish we could believe that. I wish that we could accept that as a part of our sin. Do not be afraid that if we save it and save it, the matter will change if we believe in man's all right. Man's not all right. Man's a fallen creature. Like an automobile that left the highway at a curve and went over a gully down in among the rocks. Man is not lost. Man is not damned. I heard a preacher this afternoon talking about my poor lost damned soul. No doubt damned, brother. You're lost if you're not converted. You're lost if you're not damned. That's another thing altogether. He created man to know him. And he created man to know him in a sense and to a degree which no other creature can. The creatures that are in the presence of God may not know God as well as the man says if God has made it within him. Once you see that there has to be a degree of light there which enables a man to know God. Don't sit back there under your table or the dog barrel lying on the rug. You put a record on. You put on something by Mozart or Beethoven. Never even open a C.P.I. because there's nothing in that cap military that can understand Beethoven or Mozart. Put on some of the fine records of London, the great choir there singing Christmas carols. Well, the dog will get up and go over and sit down and gaze in spite of that little ad. He knows his master's voice. No dog ever looks in the open. He did with curiosity. He can't appreciate it because he hasn't got the kind of light that can appreciate it. It's a two-year-old baby. We thought at first that our grandchildren were unusual when we would play music. They'd change their little bodies when we found out all they could do that. But everybody would enter them, if God gave them to do it. God put them into the rhythm of the universe. I'm not afraid of the little Elvis Presley, but I'm not a lot afraid of the rhythm because they, they, the beat of God. They're up and down in one place. It's, it's, it's God's music in this universe. You saw the little baby got born into, is born into the water, into the stream. And when they're old enough to hear music, they're old enough to smile and pray for it. Can't you realize that God gave them that kind of nature? You know, my brother, God made us to know him in a way that we can know him. He made us to know him to the degree that no other creature can know him because no other creature has quite the capability. Take me, the angels have capability. They're holy angels and they obey God. And take me, the seraphim and the seraphim in the fire of God, and they know God. But they don't know God. If man will know God, then redemption has been completed. I think that man should be higher than the angel. God made him a little while lower than the angel so that he might raise him higher than the angel. And when it's all over and known, we shall rank higher in the hierarchy of God than the very angels themselves. But in man, by his sin, lost it now. He lost it. I read about it over here in Roman literature. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Even they were thankful, but became vain in their imagination. His heart was darkened. And even as they did not like these things, God in their knowledge, God gave them up their big mind to do those things which were not convenient. One day he said to do this graceful act. So that man lost his knowledge of God. So that now man, though he has the potentiality to know God in a way, he still doesn't know God because his conduct is unworthy of his high origin. And his heart is filled with a huge desire to know what I mean. And so that's what the matter was. That's why we have these crises all the time. Presidents of these crises are worried immediately that the next man who is elected president may turn out to be an anti-missionary. Well, that's the matter with it. In philosophy, in psychiatry, in psychology, in sociology, and all of it could make the world a better place. Indeed, we could all, men could all be as jealous. Each other's jealous. They're judging each other more than ever since the beginning. There's more hatred, and more suspicion, and more petrifying, and more espionage, and more treachery, and more calling out. And at the beginning of the world, what's the matter? It's because man is filled with a vast emptiness. He was created to know God, and he chose the God. And he likes not to have God in his knowledge. He says man is like a bird sitting in a cage or like a seawater. And so man instinctively craves for the image. And this is it. This is the eternal being. This is the light. This is the change. And that's what the matter is. We don't know it. Some kids get into an old banged-up car with pipes and hammers and go out on the prowl looking for anybody. Not anybody in particular, but it's caused down in the deep soul of them is the knowledge that sometimes they've got to die. The world isn't enough, and there's a longing they don't understand. And so it turns in on them, and turns to shame, becomes perverted. Like the alcoholic, they choose the gutter and love the gutter. And what's the non-knowing God for sinners? Well, the creatures of God can be known. Creatures of God can be known as the abandoned angels of sin. Why did we abandon the angels of sin? Because they were never made in the image of God. They were made morally capable of moral and spiritual perception. But they were not made in the image of God. Why did not God, for God's name, was made in the image of God? Because God gave man a chance, a chance of redeeming. How does the Bible teach that? It teaches that in Christ, in through Christ, He is the image of the invisible God, the brightness of His glory and express. Our old Father said this about us. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of Him, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. He is of one substance, the Father, spiritual nature. And this is what the Bible teaches. It teaches that everything that God had is. Don't listen to the liberals who say God revealed Himself through Christ. Don't listen to the liberals who say that Christ reflected more of God than other people did. Don't listen to the liberals who say that if one piece of metal erupted in another, so certain individuals are seen to God in a way that other individuals aren't. A religious genius is, and that Jesus Christ was the supreme religious genius, catching and reflecting more of that. Don't listen to that, because all that amounts to is to insult Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was not a reflector of deity, only although He was that. He was not the revealer of deity, of that. He was and is and always has been and never can cease to be God, light of light, God of God, very God, begotten, not created. You say that all that God had is, Christ is. Jesus Christ used to be back at the ancient fountain again. Back at the ancient fountain again. And over advancing years, because I felt this way when I was converted at seventeen, I certainly didn't have it developed this far, but I understood my duty. And I tell you, my brethren, that we've switched our way on into artificiality so far that it's a one-by-one, one-to-six-pitch act of our souls in faith and prayer to go back to the ancient fountain part over again. And there was God for ourselves all over again, back where Adam started, back where Adam started, back beyond where the world began, back beyond where the angels began, and the ancient, glorious, heavenly fountain was called a being of God, the shining God. And in Jesus' sight, in Jesus' sight we leave all the environs and we go back to the ancient source of our being, at that ancient source of our being we find now rest my long-divided heart, at that ancient source of our being we find the beginnings and start all over. That I may know Him, said Paul, that I may know Him. And now my question tonight is why Christians know Christ so little. Well, I'd like to say to you this, that not all of the Godhead can be known. This disclosure is only a little good thing for us, because a real good taking down is good for Christians sometimes, a getting that certainly belongs. And if any of you have the idea that you know pretty well all that can be known about God, it's a good thing. And you're only just about two more of six-pound pressure in your bow. And if any of you bow, it'll take God a long time to get in. Well, brothers, not all of the Godhead can ever be known, because that being that was capable of knowing all of the Godhead would have to be equal. Just as you can't pour a quart of water into a vessel holding less than a quart, so you can't pour all of the Godhead into a stream with anyone being less than God. ...before what some of the ancient fathers said in arguing for the Trinity. They said, look, I did like this. God, the eternal Father, infinite God, in his name is love and in his love and so the very nature of love is to give. And he could not give his love wholly to anybody. It was not wholly equal to him. And so there you have the ancient sons. He was equal with the father. The father poured out his love into the son who could contain it and contain all of it because the son loved it. And then he said, being wise, reasonably old brethren, they said for the ancient father to pour his love out on the son with the miscommunication had to be very close to the father and the son and that was the Holy Ghost. So there you have the ancient father as the fulness of his love pouring himself to the Holy Ghost, raising him, bringing him closer to the spirit and the father. So not all of the Godhead can be known. The limitless, infinite, spirit being is called God, filling and surrounding and enfolding and upholding and all that can be known of God is His willing power. And when Paul said, when Paul said that I may know Him, and Him known, you know He is not intellectual at all. You don't know God as you know the multiplication table or know the Morse code. It's seen as though I learned the Morse code. And I could send him a few messages or he wasn't on it for a while, anyhow. He'd go over the old telegraph instrument and follow almost anything, practically nothing you can't learn. But it's intellectual. And Paul said that I, he did not mean him to be intellectual. He meant by experience, personally, consciously. He meant that I may know personally, myself, spirit touching spirit and heart touching heart and conscious knowledge of God. And all those generous people, I guess they had me want to hunt some of these old fellows up. I'd be satisfied with a thousand years. But after that, if I get up enough courage, I'll go hunt up some of these dear old brothers. And one of them would be, and Henry Cecil said this, there is a vast difference between hearing or leap, keep leap, keep hearing that one has been saved. Now, one thing to hear that there's been a concert, it's another thing to have heard the concert. It's one thing to hear that there has been a planet suddenly discovered, but it's another thing to have gained on that planet. This describes almost all Christians, not all, certainly, but a great many, too high a percentage of Christians. They've heard there's a speech and they've prayed, but they've never heard it themselves. They know God only by hearsay. And I don't want to bring people sin, but it's my conviction, a growing conviction with me, that that's what's the matter with us now. But you don't know if the gospel church, the believing church, that your sins are known God only by hearsay. I have never heard of Him except by hearsay, and others have heard Him and known Him, but only saintly. We've heard only saint echoes of God, we're hearing the voice of God. You can always tell a man or a woman who's been into the presence, and there is a vibrancy in the testimony that you don't find anywhere else. I came, I can know it by reading about it, there's most people who go there. But everybody that goes and travels abroad and comes back, if you've actually been there, you know it in a way you can't know if you've only read a book about it. You know it's a book about God, that's all. They've heard the saint echo of the voice of God, they've seen a reflection of the light of God, they've seen the face of God Himself. And their personal knowledge of God is very slight. And I don't want to hurt you. Well, I will if I have to, but I would say that I'm afraid that a lot of us here, for all our education, and for himself very much, church attendance and fellowship and singing and being on each other all the time. To have church and fellowship and religious activity and all the various religious tracts, and being on each other. That's one thing, my brethren, that's one thing. Jesus had that. He had his brethren, he had his work to do, he had his healing, raising from the eyes and unstopping the ears, answering questions and blessing people, he had that. But all the knowledge of God that was permanent and individual, so that when he went into prayer and waited on God all night, he didn't feel that he was alone. But God was there. You know, modern Christian service is just hang this and do that and go here and go there. And the result is we know God only by the hair of this sweet meat that we never had it played for ourselves. You know, we want things in church. It's true. God wants to give himself. God wants to impart himself and his gifts. Separated from God, every gift is dangerous. Any gift is dangerous. If I were to tell you anything that exists in the epistles of Paul, the gifts of the Spirit, and I got them all, they'd be dangerous to me. If you're giving yourself, listen, God wants to give you himself. Didn't I say a while ago, isn't it true in the scriptures that when God's life he creates an environment for that life? And when God made man in his image and he's been given by the blood of the Lamb back to that, is not God the environment of the Christian? Today, he's our earth and his environment for whales. I'm meant for birds. And the earth is the environment for the nightcrawler and the mole. But the heart of God is for the Christian. And God meant that we should live in that heart of God. And the great reason heaven is that we often don't want God. And even in the church today, even in the church it's the same. If God's not giving you God, he's giving you a rose with a thorn. And if he gives you a garden without giving you himself, he's giving you a garden. And if he gives you rain without giving you God, he's giving you that which you may restore yourself. And God wants to give you himself. You and I will continue this morning teaching God for his benefit. What we can do. You write a book. Anybody can write a book now and tell us. Anybody. All you have to do is write a book on ways to get peace from God. You have immediate scale. Fourteen ways to have peace of mind. And then a way to how we can bring God to our service. And the thing I can't keep up with is this. We work up God so that we can get out of it. And that's the great blight that rests upon us. The great blight that rests upon us. The sovereign God wants to be loved for himself. And he wants to be appreciated for himself. And more than that, that's only part of it and not even half of it, that he wants us to know that when we have him, we have all the rest. Jesus said it, keep ye first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness, kingdom of God, his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Why does God forgive sin? He forgives sin because sin is the shadow that stands between him, God, and us. And if God is everything, oh God, the shadow has to be removed so God forgives sin. Why does God pour out his Spirit on us when we speak the word? It's in order that the Spirit when he comes will take the sins of mine and throw them unto you. Why does God answer prayer in order that else he might unveil his own face to us? And why has God given us the scriptures? The scriptures, my brethren, are not an end in themselves. You hear them talked about as though they were an end in themselves. No man, see, in the verbal inspiration of the scriptures as originally given, than I do. But verbal inspiration or any other theory of inspiration, the Bible, an end in itself, is a dangerous thing. Because the purpose of the Bible is not to lead you to the Bible, the purpose of the Bible is to lead you to God. And the Bible is a lattice through which we look and see how beloved God is with the dew on his hair, as it is in the song of Solomon. The Bible is the ladder, the Bible is the means of communication, the Bible is the entrance in, and the Bible is never an end in itself. But the modern version is, use God, use God. Oh, that God would raise up somebody that could tell you, that could make you see it, that could make the orthodox church see it, the Bible people, the religious, the really, really devilish, that he'd raise up somebody that could make you see it. Live under God's control, indoctrination and brainwashing, in a kind of treasonous servant, instead of our being God's servants. And he likes that somehow, and he does. I discovered that the first few years of my ministry, if I couldn't have paid money in, or I've not. So I believe God sends his people, who get all excited because God sends money, and somebody over here is paying for money to buy an outboard motor, they need an outboard motor. Of course they were paying for it. Don't you see this? And somebody over here heard this, and said, you're paying $350 to buy them a motor over there. And that, but that's, what you might say, that's down on the level of the regime. There's something grander and higher and higher than that. And if God doesn't give himself over there along with a motor, they'll let that motor in himself. He wants to give gifts, but every gift he gives, he wants to give himself in gift. And that's the wonder of it, my darlings. But nowadays, use God, use God, use God to get you jobs. Use God to give you safety. Use God to give you peace of mind. In heaven, at last, I ask that God has put me to those who will say, God, I don't know. My heart says thee, my heart is, my heart is pained, nor can it be at rest till it finds rest in thee. And I'd rather have thee and nothing than to have everything rolling in my way. You can't be sure of justice, businessmen. You can't be sure of power. You're prospering, you say, because of power. Well, go ahead and try it with me. I think you should, but you're prospering in October. Maybe the economic level of the day in which you live may be cutting corners. It's better to have God in a dime than to have all the riches in the world and have God with us. God is searching for those who were put beneath the cloud of forgetting. The brother said, all that God has made. For he's a jealous lover and he suffers no rival. And he don't stand in there and take his place or even remotely take his place. He wants us to speak up. He said, don't be afraid and rest me. Somebody asked him about speaking and he said, well, let me tell you something. If anybody comes telling you to speak and you speak any more of any more love, don't listen to them. Don't listen to them. The only teaching is that which says speak more of God. Speak to those that try to use God. You can't all know all that God has written or revealed in Christ to your soul infinitely more than you now know. And if the church was to live and would get sober minded and serious and stop tearing and would begin to speak for God himself, then all the gifts of God would come along with God. And all the blessings of God would come along with God. We want a faith, we want clean hearts, we want a principle within. We want love divine, all love excelling. We want all of that. These whole things, apart from God, we've only found the Lord with a thorn. But if we find God, we sing. Sing God. Better I say a thousand times, may God through Jesus Christ. If you say, I have accepted Christ, now you can go. Oh, very wonderful, good. That's good. But do you know the man Paul had been converted to when he was one of the world's great Christians when he wrote that I may know him. And that I may know her every resurrection and the fellowship every suffering. Be made conformable unto his death. He was carrying on and it appeared to be that the knowledge of Jesus Christ, what he called the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, of the excellence of Christ Jesus my Lord. I think this is what you and I are here for. Somebody wants to know what the deeper, I almost withdraw from the sermon tonight. I almost shrink from hearing it. Because everybody's talking about the deeper life they want God. God's a deeper life. Jesus Christ's a deeper life. And as I plunge further into the knowledge of the triumph of God, and as I move out into God's presence, and as less of me and more of God, and the life becomes deepened and strengthened in God. So that this is the next step, that I might know him. And anything that keeps me from knowing him is my enemy. If it stands between him and me, that friend is an enemy. If it is a gift that stands between him and me, that gift is an enemy. If it is an ambition in me, that ambition is an enemy. If it is a deceit, I have one. And I allow that deceit to get me down and stand between, forget that. Forgetting all the things that are past, I plow forward and press on. And if it's a victory that I had back there, victory stands between me and the knowledge of God. I've got to put that victory behind me. Well, I suppose I might as well stay in bed. Anybody knows what I mean. I am headed by the grace of God to do, I think some of you do. But do you see, do you see what I mean? That all of the keepening of the gospel by punishing God, I have heard. God running around with a basket, giving away presents, like John D. Rockefeller, and he scrambled for his diamonds. So many diamonds, you know, I've talked about it. I found his diamonds. Had the image of God on them. Wonderful, isn't it? But nothing compared with the deep knowledge of God himself. Knowing, knowing, you know this knowledge of God, nobody can argue out of it. Nobody can argue out of it. They can come and point a fist, hand, or finger at you, and call you every name the Lord commits. And unless you feel bad about it, but you still know you know God. They can come and argue with you, and give you a scripture to prove you're all wrong, and one day, you can say, well, you're a pretty good expositor, but I happen to know God. You got things too late. He's coming to prove I can't, and I never came to prove it. So we can know God for ourselves, that I might know him. But there's things, some of you know that. Some of you are trying to. I've gotten letters, I've gotten, I've gotten phone calls, I have had patients, and I know that some of you are finding the Lord in a new, rich, deep, and wonderful way, deep. And I'm glad. But, uh, how about the rest? Can't we speak it? Now, let's pray. Now, before we do pray, we're going to find out if there are those who would say, I want to turn under me. Your own, your own longing heart is talking back to you. It's bigger than you, it's bigger than you are. You do not feel maybe, quite about it all, intellectually, but just for God. Do you want to know what Paul knew? Do you want to know what God has revealed and given to his spirit and his saints down the years? Do you say, pray for me, Mr. Tozer, that I might have the spirit and the courage, pray, to rise and sit behind me and under my feet? Whatever it is, friendship, ambition, a plan, or this or this or anything, that prevents me from doing it. Would you raise your hand and you would pray for me. Anybody here would say, I do want to, Mr. Tozer. Put your hand up, Mr. Tozer. Say, yes, I do. Do it. Do you want to know? Yes, I say, I do. Do it. Do you want to? Yes, yes. Do it. God put a hand into this garment. Now, let's have it every time. Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus. In the beginning is the Word, and the Word is with God, and the Word is with you. In the beginning is death. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that when we come to thee we go back to the beginning. Back as Paul, and back as Moses, back as Abraham, back as Adam. We go back to the beginning. Thank you, Lord Jesus. When thee we see the Father, we see thee, Lord Father. We request this prayer tonight. In the name of thy Son, Jesus, we pray, Father, that thou wilt take them, take them, and withholder one, and leave them in the path of evil, through ways that may be rough and hard and even painful and stifling, but leave them until all is behind them, everything is behind them, and they put behind them everything, everything, what they're proud of and what they're ashamed of, and what the victories they've had and the defeats they've had, and the mistakes they've made. Oh, we pray thee, Lord Jesus, and teach them how to look forward and not backward. And we know, Father, that when we talk about these things, some come because they feel that they can swallow or perhaps they can memorize or send one little tip they can do. Oh, Lord God, it is not thus we see, but rather by the cultivation of the knowledge of God and by faith and humility and care and trust and confidence and obedience and trusting onward and at last the mountaintop appears in view and up out of the mists we come to the sunlight. Come, Holy Spirit of heaven, come with all our faith and power and we pray thee and say, Lord, we pray thee, Lord. We pray for all of these and we pray, Lord, for some who didn't request prayer for anything but who should have this night without even salvation. And we pray for all the churches that are coming to bring their service to you till within half an hour or so. Bless them all, Lord, and grant us, pray thee, that every mess may have peace and that every couple of months and every harvest we come from heaven that there be victory in the church of Jesus Christ this night, we pray, Lord, all this hour. And we will give praise and we ask this thing through Jesus Christ, our Lord.