THE ETERNAL CHRIST THROUGH THE AGES

Dr. W. A. Criswell

Hebrews 13:8

6-21-64    10:50 a.m.

 

On the radio and on television you are sharing the services of the First Baptist Church in Dallas.  This is the pastor bringing the 11:00 o’clock morning message entitled The Eternal Christ Through The Ages.  The text is out of the passage we read together in the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews and the eighth verse: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever” [Hebrews 13:8].

As I began to study, to prepare for this message, I had in my mind a theme, a subject, the one that is printed in our church paper, “The One God in the Bible.”  As you know, I am very much of the persuasion that there are not three Gods but one God.  You will never see three Gods.  There are not three Gods.  There is one Jehovah, Christ, Lord, Almighty God!  And it was my purpose in preparing this message, going through the whole Bible, to follow the work and the revelation of this one great Almighty God.

But as I studied and as the sermon shaped itself and as I prepared it, it came out like this.  And I give it the title The Eternal Christ, The Eternal Christ Through the Ages.  And there are seven of those ages in which this sermon will attempt to present that one great Lord God, Jesus Christ, Jehovah our Savior.  First, the eternal Christ in the ages before the world was made, in the eternal past; second, the eternal Christ in creation, in the forming and the fashioning of this present world around and above us; third, the eternal Christ in the age of the Old Testament; fourth, the eternal Christ in the days of His flesh; fifth, the eternal Christ in His ministry and work today; sixth, the eternal Christ in the day of the Lord; and seventh and last, our Lord Christ in the eternal age, the infinite forever that is yet to come.

First, our Lord Christ in the infinitude of the ages past, before the world was made.  The materialist has an insoluble mystery before him.  The incomprehensible nature of what was before anything was made is unfathomable and inexplicable to the materialist, to the secularist, to the atheist, to the pseudoscientist.  The age that is yet to come is far more understandable because it is a continuation of this present time and will share, whatever it is, many of the elements and characteristics that we know now.  But the age before there was anything is an unfathomable and inexplicable mystery to the materialist.

In the vast, empty, vacant, endless infinitude of nothing, what?  He has no answer, nor will he ever be capable of giving an answer.  But to a believer there is a sure and certain revelation.  Genesis 1:1 leads us to the great creation.  “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”  John 1:1 leads us before the creation to the great Creator Himself.  “In the beginning was the Word, the logos, the Christ, and the Word was with God, and the Word, the logos, the Christ was God.”  There never was a time when God was not.  There never was a time when the logos—when Christ was not.  And when John leads us to the person and the character of the great Creator, who lived before any thing was, immediately we are introduced to Someone whom we can personally know.  This is the Christ, the eternal Lord of the ages.  This is Jehovah Jesus!  This is our Lord and Savior in the beginning before anything was [John 1:1].

In the marvelous prophecy of Micah, when he picked out little Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Son of God, he described Him as the Governor, as the Prince, “whose goings forth were from of old, even from everlasting” [Micah 5:2].  That Prince to be born in Bethlehem is that Lord God who from everlasting lived and reigneth forever [Micah 5:2].

Our Lord prayed in the high priestly prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John. “O Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was” [John 17:5].  Back and back and back into the remotest ages of the eternity of the infinitude of the forever before, there is the Lord Christ, the Son of God, Jesus our Savior.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word, the logos, the Christ, was God” [John 1:1].

All of the ages that were to come were framed by that great, sublime, exalted architect of the universe.  Hebrews begins:

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto the fathers by the prophets,

Hath spoken unto us in these latter days by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom He made the worlds;

[Hebrews1:1-2]

That’s the way it is translated in the King James Version.  “By whom He made the worlds” [Hebrews 1:2].  What the author wrote, “By whom He framed the aionas, the eons, the ages.”  In the beginning, before anything was, the great Almighty Lord Christ saw in preview the great ages that His hands were to frame.  All of them were in the mind of God before they came to pass [Hebrews 1:2].  The days of the creation, and the millenniums, and the ages of this earth, these vast geological infinitudes, and beyond those ages, the ages of life, the days of the antediluvians [Matthew 24:38], the days of the Old Testament dispensation [Romans 9:4-5], these days of present grace [Romans 6:14], the age that is yet to come [Ephesians 2:7], and the infinitude of the infinity that is yet to be [1 Corinthians 15:24]—all of that was in the mind of the Lord Christ, who was the great Architect who framed these ages in the beginning and saw them before they ceased to be, and each one of those ages was so made that one predeceased the other, and the other was the succession of its predecessor [Hebrews 1:2].  And as the seed gives birth to the plant and the fruit comes out of the flower, so these great ages in the mind of God, each made its vast contribution to the great and infinite consummation of all time.  And in the mind of the great Almighty Creator, He thought and He purposed the infinite plan of redemption [Titus 1:2].  Time and again in the Bible the Lord Christ is referred to as the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the earth [Revelation 13:8].  Before any thing was, before creation existed, the Lord God saw the fault, and the iniquity, and the sin, and the perdition of mankind.  And somewhere in that infinitude of the ages past, the Lord Christ volunteered to be an atonement and expiation for the sin of the man that He would make [Hebrews 10:5-14].

And what has happened, whatever it is, comes as no surprise to God.  Your life, the contingencies and exigencies that surround your daily existence, nothing comes as a surprise to God, nor is the atonement a remedy for a mistake, or an afterthought [Romans 5:11].  It was in the foreview of the great Lord God: our sin [Romans 3:23], the fall of this world [Genesis 3:1-6], and the expiation and atonement for our iniquities [1 John 2:2], and the creation of a new humanity in a new earth yet to come [Revelation 22:1].  All of that was in the visage and foreview of God before the foundations of the world were laid.  This is the eternal Christ of the infinite past.

I now speak of the eternal Christ in creation.  Colossians 1:16 avows that “All things were made by Him, and for Him,” as John wrote, “And without Him was not any thing made that was made” [John 1:3].  Notice the addition that Paul writes to Him.  “By Him all things were made, and for Him” [Colossians 1:16].  The life of Christ, the great Almighty, logos, Creator, the life of Christ is inwrought in everything that He made [John 1:1-3].

The living Christ is present in all that He created, and the processes of nature define, and dramatize, and expend, and illustrate the incomparable life of our Lord.  His birth [Galatians 4:4]; everything in nature has a birth [Ecclesiastes 3:2].  Each plant and animal has its day.  Its substance is formed in solitude and in silence.  And there is a set time for the birth of all things and an hour that eventually comes.  His life of faith [Matthew 4:4]; all nature lives by the day.  The little plant that sprouts and begins to grow trusts God for the showers to fall and the sun to shine.  And the little ground sparrow who builds its nest by the clod trusts that no heavy heel will crush it.

The ministry of our Lord; the miracles of Christ are inwrought and inwoven in the very fabric of nature itself.  On a thousand hillsides He is turning water into the fruit of the vine [John 2:1-11].  Every repast is manna spread in the wilderness [Exodus 16:14-19].  Every storm that is quieted is stilled by the hand of voice of Him who bid the waves be silent and quiet in Galilee [Luke 8:24].  Every healing is a divine healing [Exodus 15:26].  His life of ministry in the earth and nature speaks of a resurrection.  In the incomparable chapter on the resurrection, the fifteenth of 1 Corinthians, Paul uses the language and the illustrations of nature, when nature comes to the birth in the springtime, when the glories of God fruit and flower to His worthy name [1 Corinthians 15:23, 35-44].

All creation is a prophecy.  The stars speak of other worlds that are yet to come.  Every sunset is an apocalyptic vision of the dreams of these who someday shall rest in God.  Every sunrise is an announcement, “Behold, behold, He cometh” [Jude 14; Revelation 1:7].

And the voices of nature speak of His ultimate, and coming, and inevitable day of judgment—the thunder and the lighting, the roar of the waves, the earthquakes, the hail and the fire.  And when a man shall stand before God Christ in that judgment day and shall attempt to say, “but I didn’t know, I didn’t understand,” ten thousand voices of nature shall cry, “But I told you!”  An atheist is an impossibility.  Unbelief is insane!  Impiety is unnatural!  The astronomer, the scientist who can see God’s works and be an unbeliever is mad.  But for His people, they are sermons in stones; God’s books and running brooks and Christ in everything.  The whole world with its chalice above us is God’s temple.  Every rock is sacred, every foot of ground is consecrated, and the Lord is with us for His creatures to worship and to praise world without end.  The life of Christ is inwrought in the very fabric of the creation that He made.

I speak now of the eternal Christ in the dispensation, in the age of the Old Testament.  When the Lord God came to make the man, He paused and there was a conference in the Godhead.  There was a deliberation, “Let Us.”  There was a consideration, “Let Us.”  There was a counseling, “Let Us make man in Our image” [Genesis 1:26].  For in that act, in the volition of choice of the great Lord Christ, His own life, His own way, His own appearance, His own form, His own destiny was to be changed forever and eternally.

He was to bring into existence a being with whom He was forever to be identified, from whom He was never to separate Himself.  He was to bring into creation a race out of which He should build a people for His own, the bride with whom He was to live in gladness and joy forever.  And in the creation of the man, there was a pause, and a counsel, and a deliberation in the Godhead.  And when man was created, His work changed from that of creation to that of providence.  And His name changed from Elohim, “God,” to “Jehovah” [Genesis 2:4], the covenant name by which He shelters, and cares, and redeems His people.

And thereafter in the story of the Old Testament age, you have the Christophanies, the appearances of Christ among men.  He walked with Adam in the cool of the day; that was Christ, the Lord God Jehovah [Genesis 3:8].  He spake to Abraham; that was the Lord God Jehovah [Genesis 12:1-3].  He wrestled with Jacob at Peniel when Jacob said, “I have seen the face of the Lord” [Genesis 32:24-30].  He spoke to Moses out of the burning bush [Exodus 3:2], “Take off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground” [Exodus 3:5].  “I have heard the cry of My people, and I have raised thee up to deliver them” [Exodus 3:9-10].  That was the cry and the call of the Lord Christ.  He met Joshua and said “As Captain of the host of Israel am I come” [Joshua 5:14].  He walked with the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, when Nebuchadnezzar said, “Did I not cast three into the fiery furnace?  But I behold four walking loose, their bands asunder; and the countenance of the fourth is like the Son of God” [Daniel 3:24-25].  That was the Lord Christ.

And the incomparable prophets spake of the glory of His being.  “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall rest upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace” [Isaiah 9:6].  And in the fortieth chapter the same great prophet said there shall be a messenger who shall go before His face when the Lord shall come [Isaiah 40:3].  And who was the Lord that came following the great messenger before His face?  It was the Lord Christ, the God of the Old Testament dispensation, the eternal Christ [John 1:23-29].

And when He made the man [Genesis 2:27], and the man sinned and fell [Genesis 3:1-6], this was something not unknown to the Lord, for sin entered the house of God in heaven [Ezekiel 28:15] before it invaded the home of man in earth!  Christ felt the sting of the rebellion of Satan long before the man felt his stab.

There is in heaven the great Mighty God, and there is in heaven a being, a glorious being, one so glorious that even Michael the archangel dare not reprimand him, but said, “The Lord rebuke thee” [Jude 9].  A cherub created higher than all of the creation of God [Ezekiel 28:14], we know him afterward by the name of Satan, diabolos, the accuser, the devil.  And they two have been, since Satan’s creation, known to one another and close to one another.  And Satan despises, and hates, and rebels against his Lord and his Master [Isaiah 14:12-14].

In heaven there is a division of hosts.  In earth there is a division of hosts, and that division, that divisiveness, is at the very center of the universe!  It is inescapable in your own heart, in your life, in government, in culture, in state, in nation, in the world, in history.  That divisiveness, that devilness, is forever here; Satan and his heavenly hosts, Michael and his angels [Revelation 12:7], the Lord Christ and His redeemed, and these who are lost, the dupes of the devil [1 Peter 5:8], forever and ever [Matthew 10:34-36].

What has the Lord Christ done in the Old Testament for the race that fell and the man that sinned? [Genesis 3:1-6].  And he took coats of skin and He covered the shame and the nakedness of the man and his wife [Genesis 3:10, 21].  And thereafter in the shedding of blood was the covering over of sin [Genesis 4:4], the offering of Abel, a lamb slain and its life poured out into the earth.  And every sacrifice thereafter through the innumerable countless years was a pledge that Christ someday would redeem the man that He made in His own life and in His own blood, in His own sacrifice, and in His own atonement [Matthew 26:28].  Every man that was ever saved before the day of the cross was saved by a pledge that, at God’s appointed time, in the fullness of time, He would come and give His life to cover over the cumulated sins of His people [Galatians 4:4-5].

That’s why on the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared unto the Lord Christ [Luke 9:28-35], and they spake to Him about what?  They spake to Him about His death which He should accomplish at Jerusalem [Luke 9:31].  “For,” said Elijah, “For,” said Moses, “we are only here in glory, in heaven, because of the pledge You have made in Your own death to wash, to cover over our sins” [Psalm 51:7-10; Isaiah 53:5]  This is the Lord Christ of the Old Testament dispensation.

I come now to speak of the fourth, the eternal Christ in the days of His flesh.  And in the fullness of time, in God’s elect purpose, and in His love and grace for us who were lost there was sent into this world the great God Himself.  “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” [John 1:14].  And when that event came all the angels in heaven looked upon it in wonder, in astonishment, in glory, and in amazement [Luke 2:8-16].  One of their number, Gabriel, was sent to Zacharias to announce the birth of the messenger before His face [Luke 1:5-19].  And Gabriel was sent to a little town in Galilee named Nazareth to announce to Mary that she should be the mother of this foreordained and foreknown Child [Luke 1:26-35].

And on a night of nights when all the heavens were resonant with the harmonies of the spheres, when the morning stars were singing together, when the glory of God was lowered as golden lamps earthward, the Child was born.  “Come,” said the verse number [6] of chapter 1 in Hebrews, “When the first begotten is brought into the world, let all the angels worship Him” [Hebrews 1:6].  And they burst into the singing of a doxology they’d been practicing since the dawn of creation [Luke 2:8-14].  The Savior had come, God was incarnate; the pledge is to be kept [Luke 2:15-16].

Born so poor, born in a stable, lived a life of destitution and want:

He, who was in the form of God, thought it not a thing to be grasped, to be equal with God:

But poured Himself out, emptied Himself, made Himself of no reputation, took upon Him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of man,

And as a man became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

[Philippians 2:6-8]

He lived a life of humiliation and want.  He was so penniless that when He sought to use one for an illustration, He borrowed it from somebody else [Mark 12:15].  He had no place to stay [Matthew 8:20].  And if anyone invited Him into their home for a meal  or for a lodging, He accepted it [Mark 14:3].  He would seek on a fig tree for a few figs that might have been overlooked [Mark 11:13].  Walking through the fields He would eat raw grain [Mark 2:23].  He lived outside and slept so much in the open [Matthew 8:20] and then died as a malefactor, died as a criminal, crucified between two thieves, and His blood was poured out into the ground, and the earth drank it up [Luke 23:32-46; John 19:28-35].  This was the expiation for the sins of the world [1 John 2:2].  This is the great death of atonement, the death that He volunteered before the world was made [Hebrews 10:5-14].

And He was raised from the dead by the power of God and declared the Son of glory, forever and forever! [Romans 1:4].  And they worshiped Him as God in the days of His flesh [Matthew 14:33] and in the days of His glory and resurrection [Matthew 28:5-7].  His life was the life of God.  His words were the words of God.  His deeds were the works of God.  And after forty days raised from the tomb, He ascended into heaven [Acts 1:3, 9-10].

Rising from the earth, He blessed the little band of faithful disciples at His feet, in whose souls He deposited the truth of the gospel message [Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:9-10].  Rising still higher, He saw the great city Jerusalem, the city of the great King spread out before Him.  Rising still higher, He could see the length and breadth of Palestine as Moses did from Mount Nebo [Deuteronomy 34:1-4], His people.  Rising still higher, He could see the vast circuit of the earth that He came to redeem [John 3:16].  And rising still higher, He entered the gates of glory [Acts 1:9-10].

How much in the Bible will you find of the reception of the Lord Christ when He returned to heaven?  “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory will come in” [Psalm 24:7].  Or as Ephesians, He hath ascended on high.  He hath taken captivity captive, and given gifts unto men [Ephesians 4:8].

Or as it is written in the Revelation:

And I beheld, and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the cherubim, and the twenty and four elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;

Saying with a great voice, Worthy is the Lamb to receive riches, and honor, and glory, and dominion, and power for ever and ever.  And the four cherubim said, Amen … And the four and twenty elders bowed down and worshiped Him who liveth for ever and ever and ever.”

[Revelation 5:11-12, 14]

This is the eternal Christ in the days of His flesh.

I speak now of the fifth: the eternal Christ in His present work and ministry in heaven.  And after He had finished His work, the Book says in so many places, and He sat down on the right hand of glory [Hebrews 1:3, 8:1], and power, and of the Father, and of God.  That is a sign of His finished work in the earth.  “And He sat down on the right hand of God” [Hebrews 10:12].  And He is seated at the right hand of God in authority, and in exaltation, and in glory:

Wherefore God hath given Him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, the hosts in heaven, of things on earth;

Every man someday shall be a believer, of and things under the earth, in the netherworld, Satan and his fallen angels.  All shall praise Him to the glory of God.

[Philippians 2:9-11]

Seated on the right hand, the place of exaltation and authority, seated on the right hand of God, our great Mediator and Intercessor and Advocate, “Wherefore He is able to save to the uttermost them who come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” [Hebrews 7:25]; seated on the right hand of God as our great Mediator and Intercessor [Romans 8:24], to hear the prayers of His people when He bends low His ear to hear the least cry from His humblest saint; seated at the right hand of God in authority and glory waiting until His enemies be made His footstool [Psalms 110:1]; seated on the right hand of God in glory and in power, there to prepare a place for us who shall look in faith unto Him [John 14:1-3].

And our Lord in His present ministry, walking among His churches: “And I saw One like unto the Son of God walking among the seven lampstands, and the lampstands are the seven churches” [Revelation 1:12-13, 20], the plentitude, the multitude of Christ’ churches in the earth.   And He visits us at a morning hour, and He comes back at an evening hour, and He comes again at a prayer meeting service.  And He listens to the Sunday school teacher as she opens the Holy Book.  And He listens to the choir as it sings, and He worships with His people; Christ, the living Christ among His churches.

And He dwells in our hearts, we who are the temple of the Spirit of the presence of the living Christ.  “For I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” [Galatians 2:20].  Christ is identified; His life is with His people.

And on the Damascus road Saul saw a light from heaven above the brightness of the midday Syrian sun [Acts 9:3].  And blinded by the glory of that light, he fell to the earth and heard a voice, saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” [Acts 9:4]  Christ is identified with His people.  And on the isle of Patmos for the word and testimony of Jesus, thinking He was alone, John heard a great voice like the voice of a trumpet speaking, and turning to see the voice that spake unto him, he saw the Lord Christ [Revelation 1:9-13].  This is Christ, the eternal Christ in His present ministry, shepherding His people, living with His people.

I speak now of the sixth great age: the eternal Christ in the day of the Lord, the age that shall immediately follow this day of grace.  All of the Scriptures speak of the coming day of the Lord.  The Old Testament prophecies, the New Testament prophecies; there is coming a time when history and all summation of meaning shall be consummated in that great final day of the Lord.  The first promise in the Bible spake of it: “And the Seed of the woman, this incarnate God, the Word made flesh, shall someday crush Satan’s head” [Genesis 3:15].  “And Enoch, the seventh from Adam, the first prophet prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints” [Jude1:14].

Now the Lord is invisible.  Now He is unseen.  Now He is away waiting for a kingdom, waiting until His enemies be made His footstool [Hebrews 10:12-13].  Now our Lord is in heaven, invisible.  And His people suffer and they’re martyred and slain.  And the truth is vilified and disdained and disowned.  But there is coming a day; there is coming a day, an inevitable day, a triumphant day when the Lord shall appear openly, visibly, present, ha parousia, the presence of the Lord.  And He shall appear on clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also who pierced Him, and the families of the lost world will wail because of Him [Revelation 1:7].  And it is our Lord Christ who is the great figure in that day of the Lord.  He is present, and He leads His armies [Revelation 19:11-14], and He slaughters the enemies and the iniquitous [Revelation 19:15-21].  And He crowns His people with glory, and with power [1 Peter 5:4].  And He comes and His rewards are with Him [Revelation 22:12].  This is the eternal Christ in the day of the Lord.

Now, seventh and last: we speak of the eternal Christ in the forever that is yet to come.  That final age, that final eon, that final infinitude will begin when time ends.  As Paul writes in His glorious doxology, “Unto Him be glory in the church,” in the bride of Christ, in the New Jerusalem, in the new creation, “Unto Him be glory, world without end, through the ages of the for ever and the for ever” [Ephesians 3:21].  And that age is described in the last two chapter of the Apocalypse [Revelation 21:1-22:21].

In the age, the infinitude beyond time, in the forever that is yet to come there is first the throne of God and around the throne is the city of God [Revelation 21:5, 10].  And wider still is the new earth that God shall create [Revelation 21:5].  And wider still is the new heaven the Lord shall make [Revelation 21:1].  And wider still, for there is a wider still—in the ninth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, in the sixth verse when it is described, [to] the Lord God shall be a Son born, it is said, “and of the increase of His government there shall be no end, to establish it for ever!” [Isaiah 9:6-7]  Of the increase of His government, and beyond the new heavens, and beyond the new earth, there shall be other worlds, and other infinitudes, and other glories, and other amazements, and other wonders!

Ah, anywhere is the center, and the circumference is nowhere!  As we shall behold, and see, and share a life and the worlds that eyes have never seen and ears have never heard described, and even the imaginations of a man have never attempted to delineate; the infinitude of the glory that is yet to come [1 Corinthians 2:9].  And in the heart of it, and in the heart of it is the city of the soul, the redeemed of humanity, the bride of Christ, the mountain of the Lord, the glorious golden and shining city, the New Jerusalem [Revelation 21:1-5].  It is surrounded at its base with a great and high wall made of solid diamond [Revelation 21:18].  The great walls are pierced with twelve gates fashioned out of solid pearl.  And from each one of the twelve gates there run avenues made out of solid gold [Revelation 21:21].  And those golden avenues rush hard by the streams, the river of life.  And on either side of the river of life are the trees for the salvation and the healing of the nations [Revelations 22:1-2].  And the avenues all converge, and the windows of the mansions all open toward the palace of the great King.  And there is no temple there [Revelation 21:22].  There is no veil to hide away the glory and majesty of God.

And there’s no reason to shut out the presence and the holiness of the Lord Christ, for He is open, and visible, and His people shall see Him and see Him as He is [1 John 3:2].  And the Lamb, the glory of God shall lighten the face of every redeemed saint as he looks, as he looks upon the wonder, and the glory, and the majesty of his Lord Christ [1 Corinthians 13:12; 1 John 3:2].  And we shall be enraptured and immortalized by the infinitely celestial vision.

“For we all, beholding now as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” [2 Corinthians 3:18].  “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” [2 Corinthians 4:6].  This God is our God forever and ever.  Hallelujah!  Amen.  Amen.  “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever” [Hebrews 13:8].

Oh, what a gospel to preach, if one had but the voice of a seraph to say it!  I feel in the presence of the revelation of the great God our Savior, I feel like unlatching my shoes.  Surely where one calls on the name of Jesus is holy ground.  Surely the voice that would name His name is a hallowed and sanctified voice.  Surely the place where one would give his heart to the Lord is the sublimest, holiest altar in heaven and earth.  And surely the divinest fellowship is the communion between a believer and the exalted Lord.

Oh, the condescension of God that He would hear even us who are made out of dust and ashes, and translate us into the kingdom of His dear Son, our Savior, exalt us above the angels of glory, and make us fellow heirs to share His throne world without end! [Romans 8:17].  And that is yours for the having.  It is ours for the asking.  It is our possession for the taking, for the receiving [Romans 10:12-13].

Today, this day, would you open your heart and let the King of glory come in?  On radio, on television, and in the great throng of people in God’s sanctuary this morning, would you give your life in trust, in commitment to the Lord?  Would you do it?  One somebody you, a family you, a couple you, if you’re in the balcony round there’s a stairway at the front and the back, on either side.  On this lower floor into the aisle and down to the front, “Here, pastor.  I give you my hand.  I have given my heart in trust to God.”  Or, “Here, pastor, is my wife.  These are our children.  All of us are coming today.”  As the Spirit of Jesus shall open the door and shall lead in the way, make it now.  Make it now.  “I will decide for Him now, a commitment forever, and here I am.  Here I come.”  Make it, make it now, while we stand and while we sing.