[0:00] We shall turn again to 1 Kings chapter 3, reading at verse 5. 1 Kings chapter 3 and verse 5.
[0:16] In Gideon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.
[0:30] It may be that some of us have pondered the possibility of being told that we may wish for any one thing, and be assured of getting it.
[0:55] And there are moments in both legend and history where men have had this kind of privilege.
[1:07] We might even, as the narrative suggests, ask for revenge and triumph over opponents and foes.
[1:47] We find that Solomon was given this opportunity by God himself in a totally historical and not in a fact way.
[1:59] The Lord says, ask what I shall give thee. Ask one thing, and we shall have that one thing.
[2:13] In many ways, I'll create a test of the man himself. And if it was a test, there is one which Solomon passes with flying colors.
[2:28] Because what he chooses meets with God's total approval. He asks God for wisdom.
[2:40] We find in verse 9 that Solomon says to God, Give thou for thy servant an understanding heart. That is what he prayed for.
[2:53] That is what he prayed for. He might have had anything he wanted. But it sure was out of all the options. He chose wisdom.
[3:03] He chose wisdom. And I want to for a moment to explore this situation. To explore this choice that Solomon made. Consciously I speak to many who are students.
[3:18] Involved in academic questions and intellectual pursuits. And those pursuits of service lying very close often to the royal area of wisdom.
[3:37] And yet wisdom is something that is far-blooded. We may be a cultivation of the intellect. It is more than information.
[3:49] It is more than sharp, logical power. It is more than literary creativity. It is more than being cultured. Remember James VI.
[4:04] How he was called the Wires' Fooly in Christendom. Because he had so much learning.
[4:16] And yet with all that learning. Was often at least deemed. Not always fully. To be divided. Of practical common sense.
[4:30] And soon as we ponder tonight. All the stresses and pitfalls of our own existence. As we contemplate the number of choices.
[4:43] Of dilemmas. Of crises. That we are destined to face. Surely it will be well for us.
[4:55] To make this great choice of Solomon's own. And to ask from God. And to ask from God. Above all else the gift.
[5:07] Of an understanding heart. Ask. What one thing I shall give thee. And this great answer. The one thing which I want.
[5:21] Above all. Because I need it above all. Is an understanding heart. And this great choice. And this great choice. And this great choice. And this great choice. Lord give me wisdom. Let me know.
[5:33] So. Let's explore for a moment. What exactly. This might mean. In our lives. In the fiendalias. In which this wisdom is so necessary.
[5:44] It is necessary. First of all. In connection with our own. Daily lives. And our own daily calling.
[5:57] You will notice. That Solomon sets his request. Very very carefully. In the context. Of what I may call.
[6:09] Professional responsibilities. It says to the Lord. In verse 7. I am but a little child.
[6:21] I know not how to go out. Or come in. And my servants in the midst. Of thy people. Which thou hast chosen. Are great people.
[6:33] That can't be numbered. Not counted. For multitude. It is a sense. And a solemn adequacy. And the presence.
[6:45] Of. The ordinary. Buildings of his calling. It is in his profound sense. Of that. That Solomon enters.
[6:58] This prayer to God. He is in a work. To which God has called. His very. A well defined. Responsibility.
[7:10] He knows. The parameters. Of his own job. He knows. The greatness. Of his task. He knows. The limitations. Of his own resources.
[7:23] And what he prays for. Bores. In the direct. As possible. Worry. Upon his own. Daily responsibilities. Now.
[7:35] Of course. For us. With us. A very much. More limited. Still. Our own. Collings. Our own.
[7:46] Relationships. The management. Even. Our own. Temperaments. Our own. Sinus. Nothing. In comparison. With the boundaries.
[7:57] With Solomon. Law. And that. Even in face. Of the. Demands. Of our own. Day to day. Lives.
[8:08] Our own. Professions. Our own. Jobs. Don't we need. To make it. Our own. The spirit. Of solomus. However.
[8:19] Elementary. Our mundane. Our routine. Our monotonous. Our lives. They seem. To us. To be. All of us. Know. That frequently.
[8:30] We're at the end. Of our own. Resources. We're at the end. Of the. Tether. Our own. Times. Our own. Missileance. Our own.
[8:40] Optitudes. Slow. Think facing. Problems. Which are too large. For ourselves. Now. Listen. In the Old Testament. Is an intensive.
[8:51] Practical thing. It doesn't belong. To universities. And classrooms. And colleges. It belongs. To men's. Oldenly. Persuits.
[9:03] They are. In their. Personal. Relationships. In their. Daily. Advocations. In their. Temptations. And. To. Dead. To. To. In their. Olden.
[9:13] Lives. They are. They are. To. Find. This great thing. Called wisdom. And. Surely. As we say. With ourselves. For example.
[9:25] We leave. As we enter. Upon. Our own. Collings. A fine grasp. Of the great. Biblical. Principles. Of conduct. Where matter.
[9:37] What our spheres. Are going to be. For our own. Relationships. For our own. Colleagues. We need to know. God's. Principles.
[9:47] Of conduct. There is no reason. Imagine. We can go. To life. Enter the factory. Of the school. Or forever. And discover.
[9:58] Principles. As we do our own. We have to. We owe. The great principles. To guide us. Before we assume. Those burdens. And face. For our own.
[10:09] Other farming. Temptations. We go. And are we. Under the wisdom. That knows. That God. Wants us. To love. The Lord. Our God. With all our hearts.
[10:21] And to love. Our neighbors. Ourselves. And how many. Crises. And failings. Would we abide. If we are.
[10:32] To apply. In our own routine. Our wisdom. As we live. To use that. And be more full. And more from God's word.
[10:43] The works. Workings. And the implications. Of those two. Finimental principles. The sanctity of truth. And the sanctity of life. The sanctity of man's reputation.
[10:55] Of marriage. The sanctity. Of property. Of God's name. Of God's name. Of the Lord's day. We go into. Our professions.
[11:07] And. With a firm grasp. Of those. Blood sanctities. And whatever. And the pressures. Of the pleasures. Howly plausible.
[11:19] Nor be the solicitations. With which we applied. We shall say no. I have committed a wisdom that knows.
[11:31] That truth is sacred. And I shall not die. I have committed a promotion. At the expense of truth. Or at the expense.
[11:42] Of another man's reputation. Or at the expense. Of violating the sanctity of the Lord's day. When I don't have to. Or at the expense.
[11:53] Of becoming covetous. And ambitious. In a worldly sense. All at the expense. Of being prepared to compromise.
[12:05] My home. My family. My marriage. These are all. Dead food. I live to. I live to. As we were still the duties.
[12:17] The wisdom that says. Wherever I go. I shall not be my neighbor. I may be my superior. I may be my inferior.
[12:27] Or my equal. Or my wider. Or my friend. Or my enemy. Or my competitor. But I shall love them. As myself.
[12:40] And I shall make that principle. My fundamental and guiding principle. In all my duties. And I shall observe those. Great sanctities.
[12:51] Which God has revealed. In the words. I go in. I go in. Move with a conscience. Which is totally open. I am totally bendable.
[13:03] And pliable. Go in. Exploratory. But I go in. Into my life. My career. With a fundamental. Sort of guiding principles.
[13:16] Because I go in. In the history. Which God has given. A fundamental. I go in. But I go in. And also. Prepare to learn. From your experience.
[13:29] Because again. In the Old Testament. We still sold. A matter of books. And it is a matter of experience. It's a matter of observing.
[13:41] A matter of listening. A matter of falling. A matter of rising. A matter of new beginnings. The experience.
[13:54] Of the instruction of others. The experience. Of the criticism of others. And I know that so much of that criticism.
[14:09] Is painful. I know that some of it is malicious. And I know that some of it is. A matter of. A matter of. A matter of. A matter of.
[14:21] A problem of experience. That it is a matter of. A matter of. A matter of. Even when it hurts. Even when it's unfair.
[14:33] Even when it's malicious. It always is truth. And I must listen to the truth in it. Even as it lies.
[14:45] Even as it grieves. And it it takes. I must be prepared to listen. To what men advise. To what men say. And criticism.
[14:57] I'm prepared to learn. From the wrong. My own mistakes. My own matters. One will sing. One makes assumptions.
[15:09] One makes the wrong assumptions. One falls. That how we learn. We go ourselves. Through the valley of the shadow of death.
[15:24] We need much. That is painful. We don't learn. Simply because it's painful. It's perfectly possible.
[15:36] To bear with you all the suffering in this world. And I'm on the foot body of it. And I must be prepared to learn. From pain. To learn. In pain.
[15:47] Over our relationships. We love. We learn in love. There are wonders to see. We are loved.
[15:58] And we learn in being loved. And we are hurt. And we learn from being hurt. And we fall. And we learn from falling.
[16:10] And we rise. And we learn from that too. If we go in with total openness. If we go in guided by God's great principles.
[16:23] But still open to the great lessons of our own experience. Because that is God's discipline. That people will meet.
[16:36] The opportunities. The temptations. The relationships. The jaws. The privileges. The pains. The sorrows. So that in a great way.
[16:49] We have never arrived. And we never cease glory. And we never cease maturity. Because our pores are open.
[17:02] And we swallow up. God's discipline education. Without a veil. And bribes the plankton. It comes in. We take it.
[17:13] Simply because we are leading through. This valley. Of the shadow of death. And the most terrible thing. Is to go into our situation.
[17:25] With a closed mind. And the imagination. That we must make ourselves proof. Against this culture.
[17:36] Or against this experience. We have personalities. Which are not static. Do not need to stand still.
[17:47] If God spares me. It is my great hope. That I shall learn. And learn. And learn. And so this difference.
[17:59] In 20 years time. From what I am tonight. As what I am today. Some 20 years ago. And that difference. Is in many ways.
[18:11] Many need to. And we can only come about. Because we are ourselves open. To all the messages. And all the pressures.
[18:24] And all those influences. That God. In his providence. Really needs to bear. A place. We are asking God. To give us the wisdom.
[18:34] Of first principles. But also to give us the wisdom. Of experience. But Solomon was asking for no.
[18:46] He was asking for God. To indwell his mind. Solomon wouldn't have put it that way. I would think perhaps.
[19:00] In the New Testament form. Where the Lord himself promised his disciples. That in the news of crisis. It will be giving them.
[19:11] In an hour. For to speak. Don't worry. He says. What he shall say. It is absolutely pointless.
[19:23] To try to mention beforehand. Every single crisis. I am going to them. With a prepared technology. And with a health dancers.
[19:37] Because life is far too complicated. You can go in with ground rules. You can go in with all the instincts. Born in experience. But then you are suddenly every day.
[19:50] Faced for a new situation. You have never met it before. Now you find that so lovely. It's beautiful. In the story itself. In first Kings chapter 3. The first thing was so nice.
[20:03] This great request. Added to God. Then he fesses. This great dilemma. With all his two women.
[20:14] Each claiming. My priority. And the terrible rights. Over this particular child. He couldn't have seen it. He had his ground rules.
[20:25] He had his experience. But he said once that. The solution. Doesn't come. Out of the ground rules.
[20:37] It doesn't come out of past experience. It comes in what is almost. A flash of inspiration. It comes almost.
[20:49] Directly and vertically. From God himself. What to mean something of enormous importance. It is what the Lord promised his disciples.
[21:02] That in the moment of crisis. It would be given to them. That he would indwell their hearts and intellects. And that when those intellects and those hearts.
[21:16] Were faced. With the anomalous. And the bizarre. And the critical. Then God himself would give us insight.
[21:28] Would give us even. Heightened observation. Heightened mental efficiency. And they would be used to see. In and through situations. Which in themselves.
[21:40] In the beyond dimension. For which they are a small technology. Well the obvious of that. Is the need for constant dependence.
[21:50] In all part. On God himself. So that I know. That no matter how much I've been taught. No matter how much I've read.
[22:01] No matter how much I've experienced. And learned. And seen and heard. I still can't handle it. Every day. There are things I can't handle.
[22:13] I can only. Respond to them. If God is in blind intellect. I'm not advocating. Of loss.
[22:24] Of special revelation. Because I believe. That we have all. The revelation that we need. A minute in scripture. But I do believe.
[22:38] In the ministry of God. Spirit to my intellect. So that he will administer. On discernment and judgment. In moments of crisis.
[22:50] And learn to encourage. Beyond the depth and reach. Of my own experience. And I'm coming back to them and say. I'm giving me.
[23:02] With what is mundane. For this part. Of the day to day business. Of our own lives. The way we need at work. Living at our own homes.
[23:14] Living at church. The way from day to day. We manage ourselves. And I'm saying. That in that area. To handle.
[23:25] To handle its challenges. Its opportunities. Its temptations. Its stresses. Its joys. Its sorrows. And above all. To manage its relationships.
[23:37] We need wisdom. We need God's ground rules. We need the lessons. And experience. And we need God. To a dwelling intellect.
[23:49] And to give us. At every moment of crisis. His soul. His special. Illumination. Then there is a second area.
[24:00] Where this wisdom is important. And that is. In the administration. Of the church. In Jesus Christ. When I'm not speaking to clerics.
[24:11] I won't make those assumptions. But I'm going to assume. That the well being. Of the body of Christ. The prosperity.
[24:23] The cohesion. The effectiveness. Of the church of God. Is something that in the profoundest way. Matters to every single Christian.
[24:35] And I'm saying. That in order to the church's effectiveness. We need wisdom. In large doses. Of the church of God.
[24:45] That the amendment of God's church. Needs wisdom. That all its deacons. And all its elders. Need wisdom in a special way. That all needed. In all preach God's gospel.
[24:57] That they need wisdom. And I believe. That that wisdom is charismatic. And I believe. That one of the most arrogant needs.
[25:10] Of the church of God. At the present time. Is a rich and abiding measure. Of that wisdom which is from above. Which is more.
[25:21] Than education. Which is more than intellect. Which is more even than experience. Which is heavenly. In its origin. And which is heavenly also.
[25:34] In its maintenance. And I believe. That we should be crying to God. For this gift. For this great charisma.
[25:47] In order to judge the survival. We need it. In many different areas. For example. We need it. To resolve disputes.
[25:59] And differences. In the church of God. We go back to the situation. At Codians. Where believers were quarreling. Over very mundane matters.
[26:12] And taking those matters. To civilize. To let them. Judge between believers. And matters of property. Inheritance. And so on. And the blood is a blessing.
[26:25] Surely. In the church of God. Do you do not have wisdom. To decide between. Members of one congregation. Matters of that kind. Don't you have a wisdom.
[26:36] To resolve those things. Among yourselves. Are you going to cross through bankruptcy. And go out to pagan. Are you betrayers.
[26:49] And indicate to them. The total. Breakdown in love. Between Christians. And the prevalence. In the church of God.
[27:00] Of all those motives. Of others. And covetousness. That we find. In the church. The same. The same. The same. The same. The same. The same. The same. The same.
[27:11] The same. Power struggles. And go with ease. To pagan. Are you close? I'm sure. Among yourselves. You can find.
[27:21] A name to settle. The worst disputes. I'm sure. In Aberdeen. There are no problems. Of that kind. But I can see.
[27:33] One great way. Whether it's a need tonight. How precisely. This wisdom. We don't have believers. Going to love believers. In this congregation.
[27:44] But what we do have. Is this. We have branches. Of the church. Of Jesus Christ. Which beats the same faith.
[27:56] And have the same inheritance. And the same tradition. And the same aspirations. But there are different names. And there are different legal entities.
[28:09] And we are divided. And we are at war. And we are quarreling. There is no creation. There is no harmony. There is no cooperation.
[28:20] There is no creation. And I am being willing. To renew more and more. That these things. Are grievous. In the sight of God.
[28:31] Just as they are. Vagically weakening. To our testimony. And I am becoming. Just being anxious. For. The hearing of your speeches.
[28:44] And I am for one moment. Saying that we should. Just marry us. In one great world church. But I am saying. But I am saying. That I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am.
[28:55] I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. And they are crying and they are slandering and other.
[29:10] And there is a need for the Christian Solomon to give us back on prejudices. Or the legacy, decades of misunderstanding.
[29:24] And to unravel the Christian in itself. All of these things together. Has the right to keep ventures of the church of God separate.
[29:37] If they hold the head of the adhesion of the Christ of our living body. And I say that we need wisdom to deal with that kind of situation.
[29:51] Wisdom to deal it, wisdom to see it, wisdom to attempt it. Wisdom to negotiate with all its sorrows and all its problems and all its barriers. And now the church of God needs wisdom.
[30:05] It is going to come to its own members. Because in every congregation, we write back to the New Testament. We are Christians who are weak in faith.
[30:19] And some are weak in mental health. And they are somewhat unruly. They don't live with their mirrors that God has laid down.
[30:29] And they are as brother and low sisters. They are not authentic Christians. They need counsel.
[30:41] They need comfort. They need admonition. They need confrontation. They need advice. They need advice.
[30:52] And where is it going to come from? It's going to come from those who are wise. Not only from the pastors, but from the elders.
[31:04] And where are the elders? The whole church of God, you go back to first. This morning is what I believe in Paul says. Brother and you are doing women with the unruly.
[31:22] I'm willing to feel the mild, I'm willing to be weak. Not the psychiatrist. Not the minister. Not the elder. But all of you, brethren. All of you, brethren, in this collective wisdom.
[31:36] We should be able to relate to one another's problems in that way. Now what I'm saying is dreadfully dangerous and I'm terribly conscious of that.
[31:47] I don't want meddling. I don't want to miss the bodies who call me the fingers in all of people's business. And I don't want anybody who believes to be terribly dangerous involved in face-to-face person-to-person counseling, especially across sexual barriers.
[32:07] Insofar as possible, it should be done by members of Psalm 6. But I'm still going to push the point that the Church of God should be able to handle its own problems.
[32:24] The problems of its own members, that we should have the collective wisdom to strengthen the weak, to recline the unruly, and to bring to mental peace and cohesion those who have some of the more common problems that have been meant to be defective and so on and so forth.
[32:49] I know that beyond that, there is an area that denies professional attention. And I don't want anybody again meddling there beyond their own competence.
[33:00] That we need the wisdom of God as a collective entity in order to counsel and admonish the members of their wishes.
[33:14] But I need to know something more. The Church needs wisdom. Tonight there is a quarrel. It needs wisdom to counsel its own members.
[33:29] But I think too that tonight the Church of God needs wisdom to plan its own strategy.
[33:40] The cause we face, the small being of the world was faced, the crisis that threatens our own existence.
[33:52] I don't speak of one denomination. But I would tell you God in this land. I am finally scattered here and there glorious manifestations of the body of Christ, that of the Bible and the United Spiritual Denonic Churches.
[34:19] I need to know Godly ministers and great preachers. I see and hear and hear and there great visions and great dreams.
[34:32] And yet when I look over the aisle, I see nothing. I see confusion.
[34:45] I see that we live within the three lines of our own inheritance. We are churches, holy rules to be churches.
[35:00] We preach the kinds of songs that men used to preach. We have the same ministries as the church unions to have.
[35:16] And we seem to have no strategy. We seem to live from day to day and we are unable to manage even in material and our financial affairs in any coherent way.
[35:35] We stand alone from one twelve months to another. We are uncertain as to what is a call to the ministry.
[35:46] We are in the ministry. We are in the ministry of the ministry. We are in the ministry of who should be admitted to the ministry. Or how men should be trained for the ministry. Or where once they are trained, they are to be placed.
[35:59] And we say that surely the time has come for one, two, three, four, some men to say stop and look.
[36:14] To ask, what is the totality of this situation? What is the object of this exercise?
[36:26] What are the fundamental principles? What are the aspirations? What is the national situation? What is the international situation?
[36:39] What is this twentieth century? What are we trying to do? No, I am not saying that somehow you appoint an official to do this.
[36:53] I am not saying that somehow you find a committee to do this. I am not saying that somehow you find somebody to do this.
[37:05] I am speaking of charisma. I am speaking of the sovereign gift of God.
[37:16] And I am saying, what is the word to the living God? Let us say to me, Lord, the word says, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.
[37:31] And my whole church lacks wisdom. And my whole generation lacks wisdom. Lord gives wisdom. The wisdom that takes the blood of you, and the fire of you, and the orb of you, and the intermission of you.
[37:48] Lord, the truth is that. It cannot come out of the academy, out of the experience, out of the training.
[38:01] It can only come out of the sheer and relative and sovereign grace of God. And our marriage. That we should go to God collectively and say, Lord, we may not act on you.
[38:20] We may not come to suck. A few days ago, a violence and violence conference. In a few weeks, Lord, our general assembly.
[38:35] After that, the silent trial of committees. All of it necessary. All of it necessary. Not too useful. But it's all tactical.
[38:48] It's all limited. It is not strategic. It has to be the creativity of the wisdom from above. And I'm saying, look.
[39:00] The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream. And said, ask what I shall give thee. And I am praying to you tonight.
[39:15] God will say, not to me and to you, we will be of the whole church of God in this land. And I'm saying, please ask.
[39:26] For this to give love for thy servant an understanding heart. That's what we need. I must move on to one final note.
[39:40] And that is this. The wisdom of which the book of Proverbs speaks. When it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I need wisdom for my daily life.
[39:54] I need wisdom for the church of God. And above all, I need wisdom in my relations with God. And a precise form of wisdom, which is this.
[40:09] That fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom. A wise man is afraid of God. A wise woman is afraid of God.
[40:22] What does it mean? It means that no wise man lightly runs the risk of God's correction and God's chastisement.
[40:40] And when we trifle with sin. And when we run the risk of temptation and apostasy deliberately. Then we say to ourselves, look, you're a fool.
[40:55] Because you're on the risk of the wrath of God. You know, people have made a colossal error with regard to this whole problem of God's wrath.
[41:06] Because they've assumed God's wrath is for the reprobate. And God's wrath is about hell. And God's wrath has a very lost eternity. You go to the Bible, use any concordance.
[41:17] And you'll find an astonishing fact. That for the most part, it is God's people who are the objects of God's wrath.
[41:29] It was with Israel God was angry. And I'm saying tonight that a Christian who is a wise man is afraid of the displeasure of God.
[41:47] As many as I love, I'll reprove and chisel. And if we could get ourselves honed in on that terrible reality, we will be trifle or play with sin as we often do.
[42:02] But it also means this. The wise man is afraid of the final judgment of God. And I'll put that tonight especially to those of you who for some, who is not another, are not Christians.
[42:24] To me, I must confess, it's a remarkable fact that you're not Christians. It's remarkable because it seems that all of you believe in God, and all believe in the Bible as the word of God.
[42:42] I can understand the atheistic Christian. I can't understand the Christians who are people who believe this book to be God's book.
[42:58] People who know that God's in this heaven. And yet you've done nothing about it. I'm saying the wise man and the wise woman is afraid of the judgment of God.
[43:15] And I will sing, we shall all appear before the judgment seat of God. Thank you. Thank you.
[43:26] And what happens today? Face to face, eyeball to eyeball.
[43:36] Some of you can look the minister in the eye. Why not? Why not? Human beings, not always themselves worthy of much respect.
[43:50] quite something else to look God in the face, to look the consuming fire, to look him in the eye, to defy him and to argue. So the wise man is afraid of the judgment of God.
[44:14] And I would really want to say to you, I believe that God will listen to every excuse you have, that he will carefully weigh every plea that you made, and he will assess every mitigating factor.
[44:34] I believe that God will judge you most graciously, and that he will count to your credit everything he can possibly find.
[44:48] And I also believe that your punishment will be no more severe than he can avoid, because it is the judgment of omniscience that God knows every disadvantage from which you've suffered, including the bad church you went to and the bad preaching that you heard.
[45:14] He knows every single mitigating factor. And yes, I'll say, well, you can measure them and you can evaluate them, and you can work out for yourself tonight. Are you sure that they all come to a very good excuse?
[45:32] And I'm almost asking, well, when you have weighed up honestly the way it's been, the way you've gone, the choices you've made and taken, you weigh those up.
[45:46] And then throw into the balance all the mitigating factors that you know so well, because no one more is in factor than you do. And you rehearse into yourself constantly, everything in your own favor.
[46:02] Do it honestly, and do it religiously, and do it meticulously, and put in every faithful, favorable consideration. And I'm still asking, can you go to the great white throne, face to face with God, unafraid, confident, that you've got an excellent case.
[46:30] I am told, although I know it only at a distance, that no matter how good your case is in law, there is always the possibility that your litigation may fail.
[46:48] because even in human terms, a good case doesn't in itself guarantee a favorable verdict.
[47:00] And many a man and woman has gone to law with tremendous confidence. And that often happens in human terms because of incompetences and incongruities in a legal system.
[47:18] But what I'm wondering is whether your confidence in your case, I'm really asking you almost this. Would you take the case that you hope to present to God, could you take that case confidently to the court of session?
[47:35] And would you be perfectly safe and secure tonight in the knowledge that if your life depended on that case as presented to those great impartial law lords, you could sleep easy?
[47:56] Are you absolutely sure that you have a good case? Now, I'm not going to attempt to divide the sheep from the goats. I think that to a large extent in our tradition, those distinctions have become very confused and very blurred.
[48:17] I'm asking everyone, communicants, non-communicants, members, adherents, let's ponder it. How good is our case knowing that God will duly evaluate every mitigating circumstance?
[48:38] It would be wise to come to a settlement out of court in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.
[48:53] Wisdom fears the correction of God. wisdom fears the judgment of God.
[49:08] Wisdom builds on the rock, Christ said. The fool builds in the sand.
[49:19] What does it mean? Not that he built on the wrong foundation, but that he heard the word and didn't do it. In other words, he built his sole security on a foundation of hearing.
[49:36] I must, are you wise enough to build on the foundation of doing Christ's word? that word that says to you tonight, basically, one great thing.
[49:51] Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it. And that having there heard that says, strive to enter in.
[50:07] wisdom. That is what wisdom does. It takes God seriously. If God speaks of justicement, I take him seriously.
[50:19] If God speaks of eternal judgment, I take him seriously. If God speaks of a straight gate and a narrow way, then I take God seriously.
[50:33] what I've come to at last is this. That wisdom is quite simply to take God seriously.
[50:48] And that's what I'm hoping may be in response to God's great question. Ask what I shall give thee. Lord, give me as a minister and give the members of this congregation all over here tonight.
[51:08] Grace to say in response to that, Lord, help me to take thee seriously. The fool says, there is no God.
[51:23] The free church fool says, of course there is a God, but we don't take him seriously. God will take him seriously.
[51:36] And I'm saying, let us take him seriously this correction, this judgment, this invitation. Come, and I will in no wise cast out.
[51:51] Let us pray. Lord, grant us that our response to thine offer may be tonight.
[52:04] Give us an understanding heart. An understanding heart especially at the point of our relations with thee.
[52:16] Oh, Lord, help us to take thee seriously, to take even our own convictions about thee seriously. The knowledge that thou art, that the Bible is thy word, that there is heaven to be won and a hell to be abided.
[52:35] Lord, help us take thee in all these aspects of thy glory seriously. For Jesus sake, amen.