The Bible, just PARTof why I believe… ( Archived) (545)

steps. They listen to His Sermon upon the Mount. They are enchanted with it—as well they may be. They pray to be obe-dient in all things to Christ, as their Master and their Lord. They do well. Mark, I am finding no fault with any of these who prize the history, or who value the doctrine, or who admire the precept. But I want more. I do want, Beloved, thatyou and I should “know HIM.” I love His precepts, but I love HIM better! Sweet is the water from Bethlehem’s well. And well worth the struggle of the armed men to win but a bucket from it. But the well itself is better and deserves all Israel’s valor to defend it. As the source is ever more valuable than the stream, so is Christ ever better than the best words of His lips, or the best deeds ofHis hands. I want to know Him. I do care for His actions—my soul would sit down and admire those masterly works ofholy art—His miracles of humiliation, of suffering, of patience and of holy charity. But better far I love the hands whichworked these master-works, the lips which spoke these goodly Words and the heart which heaved with that matchless love which was the cause of all. Yes, Beloved, we must get farther than Immanuel’s achievements, however glorious—we must come to “KNOW HIM.” Most Believers rest perfectly at ease with knowing Christ’s Sacrifice. They see Jesus as the great High Priest, laying agreat Sacrifice upon the altar for their sins and with their whole heart they accept His Atonement. By faith they know that all their sins are taken away by precious blood. This isa most blessed and hallowed attainment, I will grant you. Butit is not every Christian who perceives that Christ was not only the Offerer of a sacrifice, but was Himself the Sacrifice, and therefore loves Him as such. Priest, Altar, Victim—Christ was everything! He gathers up all in Himself and when I see that He loved me and gave Himself for me, it is not enough to know this fact—I want to know Him, the glorious Per-son who does and is all this. I want to know the Man who thus gave Himself for me. I want to behold the Lamb once slain for me. I want to rest upon the bosom which covers the heart which was pierced with the spear. I pray Him to kiss me with the kisses of thatmouth which cried, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” I love Calvary, the scene of woe, but I love Christ better, the greatObject of that agony. And even His Cross and all His sufferings, dear though these must ever be to the Christian mind, only occupy a second place—the first seat is for Himself—His Person, His Deity and Humanity.

Thus, you see, we have to leave a great many Believers behind. Nor have we enumerated all, for I believe that even some of those saints who have received Grace to look for the coming of Christ, yet in their vision of His coming too much forget Him. Is it not possible for men to pant for the Second Advent as to lose sight of Him who is to make that advent? So to long for a millennium that I may forget Him who is to reign King of kings? So to pant after that Glory of Israel that I may forget Him who is Israel’s Glory? Anywhere short of knowing Him, I would not have you stop, Beloved. Andeven when you know Him, I would urge you still to be impelled with the same desire and to press forward, crying with the Apostle, “That I may know Him.” Beloved, how many there are who have heard of Christ and read about Christ and that is enough for them! But it is not enough for me and it should not be enough for you. The Apostle Paul did not say, “I have heard of Him, on whom I have believed,” but, “I know whom I have believed.” To hear about Christ may damn you—it may be a savor of death unto death to you. You have heard of Him with the ear—but it is essential that you know Him in order that you may be partakers of eternal life. My dear Hearers, be not content unless you have this as your soul’s present portion. Others there are who have been persuaded by the judgment and encouragement of others that they know something about the great Redeemer. They do not know Him, but still they are persuaded by others that they have an interest in Him. Let me warn you of second-hand spirituality! It is a rotten, soul-deceiving deception. Beware of all esteeming ofyourself according to the thoughts of others or you will be ruined. Another man’s opinion of me may have great influence over me—I have heard of a man in perfectly good healthkilled by the opinion of others. Several of his friends had foolishly agreed to play a practical trick on him, whereupon one of them met him and said, “How ill you look this morning.” He did not feel so. He was very much surprised at theremark. When he met the next, who said to him, “Oh, dear, how bad you look,” he began to think there might be some-thing in it. And as he turned round the corner, a third person said to him, “What a sight you are ! How altered from what you used to be!” He went home ill, he took to his bed and died. So goes the story and I should not marvel if it really did occur. Now, if such might be the effect of persuasion and supposed belief in the sickness of a man, how much more readily may men be persuaded into the idea of spiritual health!

A Believer meets you and by his treatment seems to say, “I welcome you as a dear Brother”—and he means it, too. You are baptized and received into Church fellowship and so everybody thinks that you must be a follower of Christ. And yet you may not know Him. Oh, I do pray you—do not be satisfied with being persuaded into something like an assurance that you are in Him but do not know Him—know Him for yourself. There are many who I hope will be saved before long. But I am in great doubt of them, because they can only say theyhalf think they know Christ. They do not quite believe in Him, but they do not disbelieve in Him. They halt between two opinions. Ah, dear Hearer, that is a very dangerous place to stand! The borderland is the devil’s hunting ground. Unde-cided souls are fair game for the great fowler. God give you once and for all the true decision by which, through Grace, you shall know Him. Do not be satisfied with thinking you know Him. Hoping you know Him, but know Him. Oh, it is nothing to have heard about Him, to have talked about Him, to have eaten and have drank with Him, to have preached Him, or even to have worked miracles in His name. To have been charmed by His eloquence, to have been stirred with the story of His love, to have been moved to imitate Him—this shall gain you nothing unless you win Him and are found in Him. Seek with the Apostle, to give up everything of your own righteousness and all other objects and aims in life and say, “This I seek after, that I may know Him.” Thus much, on the first point. Leaving those behind who do not know Him, let us make an advance. II. Secondly, let us DRAW CURTAIN AFTER CURTAIN WHICH SHALL ADMIT US TO KNOW MORE OFCHRIST. Did you ever visit the manufactory of splendid porcelain at Sevres? I have done so. If anybody should say to me, “Do you know the manufactory at Sevres?” I should say, “Yes, I do and no, I do not. I know it, for I have seen the building. Ihave seen the rooms in which the articles are exhibited for sale and I have seen the museum and model room. But I do not know the factory as I would like to know it, for I have not seen the process of manufacture and have not been admitted into the workshops, as some are.”

Suppose I had seen, however, the process of the molding of the clay and the laying on of the rich designs? If anybody should still say to me, “Do you know how they manufacture those wonderful articles?” I should very likely still be com-pelled to say, “No, I do not, because there are certain secrets, certain private rooms into which neither friend nor foe can be admitted, lest the process should be open to the world.” So, you see, I might say I knew, and yet might not half know. And when I half knew, still there would be so much left that I might be compelled to say, “I do not know.” How many different ways there are of knowing a person—and even so there are all these different ways of knowing Christ, so that you may keep on all your lifetime, still wishing to get into another room and another room, nearer and nearer to the great secret, still panting to “know Him.” Good Rutherford says, “I urge upon you a nearer communion with Christ and a growing communion. There are cur-tains to be drawn by, in Christ, that we never shut and new foldings in love with Him. I despair that ever I shall win tothe far end of that love. There are so many plies in it. Therefore, dig deep and set by as much time in the day for Him as you can—He will be won by labor.”To begin with. We know a person when we recognize him. You know the Queen. Well, I do. I recollect seeing her and if I were to see any quantity of ladies, I think I should know which was the Queen and which was not. You may say honestly that you know her to that extent. Beloved, every Christian must in this sense know Christ. You must know Him by a Divine illumination so as to know who He is and what He is. When Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Whom do you say that I am,” he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And the Lord replied, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you.” It is an early step in this knowledge of Christ, to know and to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. To know that Christ is God, Divine to me. That Christ is Man—Brother to me—bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. And that as such He isa sin-subduing Savior. That He is for me an Intercessor, pleading before the Throne. That He is my Prophet, Priest andKing—in this sense I trust that most of you know Him. If you do not, breathe the silent prayer now, “Lord, help me that I may know Him.” But this knowledge of recognition is comparatively a low attainment, one of the lowest rounds of the ladder of light. In the second place, a Believer knows Christ to a higher degree when he knows Him by practical experience at ac-quaintance with what He does. For instance, I know Christ as a Cleanser. They tell me He is a Refiner, that He cleanses

from spots. He has washed me in His precious blood and to that extent I know Him. They tell me that He clothes the na-ked—He has covered me with a garment of righteousness and to that extent I know Him. They tell me that He is a Breaker and that He breaks fetters—He has set my soul at liberty and therefore I know Him. They tell me that He is a King and that He reigns over sin—He has subdued my enemies beneath His feet and I know Him in that Character. They tell me He is a Shepherd—I know Him, for I am His sheep. They say He is a Door—I have entered in through Him and I know Him as a Door. They say He is Food—my spirit feeds on Him as on the Bread of Heaven and, therefore, I know Him as such. You know if anyone says, “Do you know doctor So-and-So?” it is a very satisfactory answer if you can reply, “Oh, yes, I know him, for he attended me the last time that I was ill.” There is more knowledge in that, than if on could only say, “Oh, yes, I know him—he wears such-and-such a hat,” or “he is a man of such-and-such an appear-ance.” So, Christian, there is a second and higher step to know Christ—when you have experienced in your own soulthat He is just what God has revealed Him to be.But we know a man in a better sense than this when we are on speaking terms with him. “Do you know So-and-So?” “Yes,” you say, “I not only know him by name, so as to recognize him. I not only know him as a tradesman having dealtwith him, but I know him because when we pass each other inthe morning, we exchange a word or two. And if I had any-thing to say upon matters—any request to make—I should feelno difficulty about asking him.” Well now, the Christian knows His Lord in this sense, too. He has, every day, official communication with Christ, He is on speaking terms with Him. There may be persons here, perhaps, who know the Queen in a sense in which I do not know her—perhaps they speak to her. They have so done—I have never done that. They go beyond me there. But you see, dear Friends, this is not a very great thing because you may be on speaking terms with a man—you may not know much of him for all that. So you may be in the habit of daily prayer and you may talk with Christ every morning and every evening—but you may know ex-ceedingly little of Him. You are on speaking terms with Him. But there is something beyond this, very far beyond this! I might say that I know a man merely because I meet him every day and ask him for what I want and understand that he is kind and generous. But how shallow is such an acquaintance, for I do not know his private character nor his inward heart. Even so a Believer may have constant dealings with Christ in his prayers and in his praises and yet, for all that, he may have only gone a certain distance and may have need still to pray, “That I may know Him.”

But you are said to know a person better still when he invites you to his house. At Christmas time there is a family party and a romp—and he asks you there and you are like one of his children and enter into all their sports around the fireside. And you indulge, as they do, in the genialities of social life. You are asked again. You go there pretty often. In fact, if there is a happy evening in that house they generally expect to see friend So-and-So there. Well, now, that is bet-ter. We are getting now into something like knowing a man. And I do trust there are many of you, Beloved, who have got as far as this with regard to your Divine Lord. Christ has entertained you with some rare visits from His gracious Presence. He brought you into His banqueting house and His banner over you was love. When He manifested Himself, He did it unto you as He did not unto the world. He was pleased in the majesty of His condescension, to take you aside and show you His hands and His side. He called you “Friend.” Hetreated you as such and permitted you to enjoy your sweets of being one of the family. Ah, but you may go into a man’s house as a constant visitor and yet you may not know him—that is to say, not in the highest sense. You speak to the man’s wife and say, “Your husband is a marvelously charming man. What a cheerful, joyful, spir-ited man he is! He never seems to have any depressions of spirit and experiences no changes whatever.” She shakes herhead, and she says, “Ah, you do not know him, you do not know him as I do.” Because she sees him at all times and at all hours she can read the very heart of the man. That Christian has grown much in Grace who has advanced not only to be the friend of Christ, having occasional fellowship with Him, but who comes to recognize his marriage union with thePerson of his Lord and of whom it can be said, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. And He will show them His Covenant.” Now we have the intimacy of love with its perfect frankness, nearness, sweetness, joyousness, de-light! The rending away of every separating veil makes the communion to be as near as it well can be this side of the black river. But a Christian may get farther than this! Even the spouse may not know her husband. The most loving wife who ever entered into the cares of her husband must have discovered that there is a something which separates his experience from her powers of comprehension. Lu-

ther’s wife, Catherine, was, of all women, the wife for Luther. But there were times in Luther’s gigantic tribulations when he must leave Kate behind. There were extraordinary times within him—times both of ecstatic joy—when, like a great angel, he stretched his mighty wings and flew right up to Heaven! And there were times of awful misery when he seemed to sink down to the very depths of Hell. And in either case, no other heart could keep pace with him. Then it was Christ alone who had communion with him. And a Christian may so grow in Grace as to become identi-fied with Christ, a member of His body—not so much married to Him as a part of Him. He becomes a member of the great body of Christ so that he suffers with Christ. He sympathizes with Jesus. His heart beats to the same dolorous tune. His veins swell with the same floods of grief—or else his eyes sparkle with that same gleam of joy, according to the Mas-ter’s Word—“That My joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.” Well, have not you waded out of your depth, some of you? I have certainly got out of my own. I feel as if the Master might come on this platform, look round on many of us and say, “Have I been so long a time with you, and yet have you not known Me, Philip?” For truly, even in the minor sense, though I trust we are saved, though we have believed in Je-sus, yet we have not reached the height of this great text—“That I may know Him.” III. Having taken you so far, let us SIT DOWN A FEW MINUTES AND CONSIDER WHAT SORT OF KNOWL-EDGE THIS KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST IS—“That I may know Him.” Then it is clear, if I know Him I shall have a very vivid sense of His Personality. “That I may know Him.” He will not be to me a myth, a vision, a spirit, but a Person, a real, solid Person, as much real as I am myself, or as my dearest friend can be to me. My Soul, never be satisfied with a shadowy Christ. My Heart, never be content until He has embraced your soul and proved to you that He is the lover of His people.

This knowledge, then, must be a knowledge of Him in His Personality. Then, Beloved, it must be a personal knowl-edge on our part. I cannot know Christ through another person’s brains. I cannot love Him with another man’s heart and I cannot see Him with another man’s eyes. Heaven’s delight is, “My eyes shall see Him and not another.” These eyesshall behold the King in His beauty. Well, Beloved, if this is Heaven, we certainly cannot do without a personal sight of Christ here. I am so afraid of living in a second-hand religion. God forbid that I should get a biographical experience!Lord save us from having borrowed communion. No, I must know Him myself! O God, let me not be deceived in this! I must know Him without fancy or proxy. I must know Him on my own account. And now these few thoughts upon what sort of knowledge we must have. It must be an intelligent knowledge—I must know Him. I must know His Natures, Divine and Human. I must know His offices—I must know His attributes—I must know His works—I must know His shame—I must know His Glory—for I do not know Him if He is merely a sub-ject of passion and not of intellect. I must let my head consciously meditate upon Him until I own something like an idea of Him that I may, “Comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length and depth and height. And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge.” Then I must have an affectionate knowledge of Him. And indeed, if I know Him at all, I must love Him. As it is saidof some men that there is such a charm about them that if you once get into their company you cannot criticize any longer, but must admire—so you feel with Christ. It is said of Garibaldi, that if you are in his society he charms all, sothat even malice and slander must be silent in his presence. Infinitely, supremely, so is it with Christ! Being near Him, His love warms our hearts till we glow with intense love to Him. Then I shall find, if I know Christ, that this is a satisfying knowledge. When I know Christ my mind will be full to the brim—I shall feel that I have found that which my spirit panted after. “This is that Bread whereof if a man eats he shall never hunger.” At the same time it is an exciting knowledge. The more I know of Christ, the more I shall want to know. The deeper I plunge, the greater the deeps which will be revealed. The higher I climb, the loftier will be the sum-mits which invite my eager footsteps. I shall want more as I get more. My spiritual thirst will increase, though in another sense it will be entirely quenched. And this knowledge of Christ will be a most happy one! In fact, so happy that sometimes it will completely bear me up above all trials, doubts and sorrows. And it will, while I enjoy it, make me something more than, “Man that is born of a woman who is of few days and full of trouble,” for it will fling about me the immortality of the ever-living Savior and gird me with the golden girdle of His eternal happiness. To be near to Christ is to be near to the pearly gates of the golden-streeted city. Say not, “Jerusalem, my happy home, my labors have an end in you,” but say, “Jesus, You are my

Rest and when I have You, my spirit is at peace.” I might thus keep on speaking in praise of this knowledge, but I will not. Only permit me to say what a refreshing, what a sanctifying knowledge is this, to know Him! When the Laodicean Church was neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, how did Christ seek her revival? Did He send her precious doctrines? Did He send her excellent precepts? Mark you, He came Himself, for thus it is said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will sup with him, and he with Me.” That is a cure for it all, you see. No matter how lukewarm, though God may say, “I will spew you out of My mouth,” yet, if Christ comes, that is the cure! The Presence of Christ with His Church puts away all her sicknesses. When the disciples of Christ were at sea in a storm, do you remember how He comforted them? Did He send them anangel? No. “It is I, do not be afraid.” And when they knew Him they had no more fears. They were assembled one night, “the doors being shut for fear of the Jews.” How did He comfort them? Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them and said,“Peace be unto you.” There was Thomas, full of doubts and fears. How did Jesus Christ take away his doubts? “Reach here your finger and behold My hands. And reach here your hand and thrust it into My side.” Oh, it is Christ, it is Christ who cures all! The company of Christ is the only thing which a Christian wants. I will undertake that if his heart is like an iceberg,as soon as Jesus comes, it shall flame like Vesuvius. His spirit shall be dead and like a rotten corpse. But if Jesus comes heshall leap like a hart and become strong as a young unicorn. Your Presence makes me like the chariots of Amminadib! Now do not think I am talking what I do not know. Do not imagine that I am talking mere fanatical slip-slop which I cannot prove. I do assert (and God who searches all hearts knows how true this is)—I do assert that from the depths of doubt, of dullness, of worldliness—I have leaped in one moment into love and life and holy enthusiasm when Jesus Christ has manifested Himself to me.