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Read Ebook: The One Great Reality by Clayton Louisa
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Ebook has 419 lines and 37579 words, and 9 pages
I GOD, THE GREAT REALITY
II GOD, OUR FATHER
IV THE SPIRIT OF GOD
V THE VOICE OF GOD
VI THE HANDS OF GOD
X THE KINGDOM OF GOD
INDEX OF ADDRESS I
GOD, THE GREAT REALITY
ADDRESS II
GOD, OUR FATHER
A Chinese convert--Christ's confidence in the Father--Christ reveals the Father--Philip's prayer, "Show us the Father"--What God is to us as Father--How the minister sang the Doxology in an empty flour barrel--The glorious calling of the children of God.
THE SON OF GOD
Christ is the Son of God from Eternity--He is sent to be the Saviour of the world--Three questions answered: Where did He come from? When did He come? Why did He come?--A working-man's experience--The story of the pearl necklace--Christ's work of redemption--Sir James Simpson's dying testimony--Hymn, "He came and took me by the hand."
ADDRESS IV
THE SPIRIT OF GOD
God is a Spirit--True spiritual worship--The Spirit of God in Creation and Salvation--The New Birth--The work of the Holy Spirit convincing of sin, and revealing Christ--Searchlights--The loveliness of Christ--The Holy Ghost like a Mother--The Comforter.
ADDRESS V
THE VOICE OF GOD
Jacob's ladder, a type of Christ--Jacob brought face to face with God--What it is to hear the Voice of God--God's first call to man in the Garden of Eden--A perfect link of communication between God and man--The Voice of God speaking in His Word.
ADDRESS VI
THE HANDS OF GOD
Why St. John wrote his Gospel--The safety of the believer--God's hands in Creation, Providence and Redemption--The "Scarred Hands"--The story of a brave shepherd lad--The Hands of Jesus wounded for our transgressions--The Three Crosses.
THE WORD OF GOD
The Glory of God seen in Nature--The Glory of God revealed in the Bible--The dying woman and her rich inheritance--God's Word brings wisdom, conversion, joy and light to the heart of man--Spurgeon's text in the Crystal Palace--A Chinese convert "behaving the Bible"--The Torch that will light you home--A neglected Bible.
HAVE FAITH IN GOD
THE CHURCH OF GOD
The Church of God: Past, Present, Future--Its Beginning and Growth--The Church the Body of Christ, a Living Union--The Church the Bride of Christ, a Loving Relationship--The Glory of this Union--Three Great Surprises--The Old Man's Message; Love, Eternal Love--The Four Precious Words--"Labelled and Ready"--The Glorious Future of the Church of God--The Church will show forth God's Grace and Glory in the Ages to come.
ADDRESS X
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
"Bringing the King back"--One King, Jesus, His entrance into Jerusalem--The Jews rejecting their King--His Kingdom in our hearts--Make Jesus King--The Cross the Way to the Throne--The dying thief received into the Kingdom--The King's Victory over the Powers of Darkness--The Coming King--The Glory of the Lord revealed--Christ's Reign on Earth--Rutherford's testimony--Miss Havergal's Prayer--The Eternal Kingdom.
ADDRESS I
GOD, THE GREAT REALITY
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE--Hebrews xi. 1-6.
God is the one great Reality. Will you close your eyes for a moment and say those words over again very slowly so as to let them burn into your inmost heart and soul. The Word of God tells us that "The Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true": this means that we may personally know Him that is Reality. In the wonder of that moment when we first know that God is real and that God is near, then we cry out, "My God, how wonderful Thou art." To have personal knowledge of God is the secret of assurance and happiness, and to put real trust in Him changes our whole life, for then we can say, "I have a wonderful God."
To know God is Eternal life; to know Him fully, brings "life more abundantly"; to know Him with no veil between, is glory--life.
If you look again at the 6th verse of the 11th chapter of Hebrews you will notice a very clear statement: it says, "He that cometh to God must believe that He is," or to put it in other words, "the man who draws near to God must believe that there is a God."
Do you believe in God? Is He real to you? Here is one test. When you pray do you realise His Presence? Is He so close to you that it is like speaking into His ear?
We have an illustration of this in the telephone. You first put the speaking tube to your mouth and then you say "Are you there?" In any case you make sure that the person to whom you wish to speak, is listening at the other end. Although you cannot see any one, you know he is holding the receiver so as to hear what you say.
When you begin to pray always pause for a moment and remember that you are speaking to God. Do not say a word until the Holy Spirit puts you into direct communication with God. The Psalmist was quite sure that God was really listening to his prayer, for he says, "I love the Lord because He hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because He hath inclined His ear unto me therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live." And again, "I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice, and He gave ear unto me." It is in this way we realise that there is a God, a personal living God.
I asked a Christian man one day if he had prayed about some work which was offered to him, and his reply was, "Yes: I am on the telephone." Can you say the same? As soon as you have spoken through the telephone you put the receiver to your ear to listen for the answer. Many people pray without expecting to get an answer. They are like children who knock at a door and then run away before it is opened. The prophet Micah says, "I will wait for God, my God will answer me." Yes, he expected to get an answer.
The Lord Jesus says, "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret." When a child wants to tell his father something very private he whispers it in his ear. I daresay you have noticed that the telephone at the General Post Office is enclosed in a box, so that no one can overhear what is said. There are many things we say into God's ear which we could not tell to any one else. It makes Him very real to us, if we can say in our inmost hearts, "O God, Thou art my God, my very own Father."
When we speak through the telephone we never say useless words, and our Lord tells us to avoid needless repetitions when we pray, and He adds, "for your Father knows what things you need before ever you ask Him." Just as an earthly father delights to hear his children's, voices, so our heavenly Father loves to hear us speaking to Him, for He says, "Put Me in remembrance, let us plead together."
A child's intercourse with his father is quite simple and natural, he talks freely about everything. When you speak to God, is it an effort, or do you look up into His face with confidence and tell Him all? A child expects his father to supply all his wants and to be equal to every emergency, but we seem to have lost sight of the Father in heaven who is pledged to "supply all our need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."
"Only to sit and think of God, Oh! what a joy it is!"
It is just the same with your children if you are a really good, loving father, they are quite happy if they can sit close to you. Your very presence makes a great impression on them, even if you do not say a word. Is God's presence so real to you that it makes you control your temper and keeps you from saying unkind things?
A boy may be troublesome sometimes, but he never really doubts his father's love for him. Do you ever doubt God's love? Oh, yes: you say, I often murmur. Then this shows that in a sense you have never really known God. People would not speak as they do about God, I mean even Christians would not talk as they do if they really knew God. We often hear people say, "I hope God will be good to us," or, "I think it very hard God does not answer my prayer." This shows they have never personally known Him. Their thoughts about God are so contrary to what they sing. For example, how much do we really mean of that sweet hymn--
"Precious thought--my Father knoweth, In His love I rest; For whate'er my Father doeth. Must be always best. Well I know the heart that planneth Nought but good for me; Joy and sorrow interwoven, Love in all I see."
Do you ever doubt His wisdom and think you might have been treated better? When we really know our Father-God, then we see His wisdom even in the things that are against us. We know and we feel that they have all been working together for our good, "for He knows all."
A very long time ago the question was asked, "Canst thou by searching find out God?" The only way we can find Him is by our spiritual necessities. If your soul needs life, you will find Him. If your spirit needs reviving, you will find Him. As this text says, I come "to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
When your children talk about their Father, he is a real Person to them; that is what God wants to be to us, a real personal God. He says, "I will be to them a God." I know a little boy who whispered to his aunt one night when she was giving him the goodnight kiss, "Oh, Auntie, I sometimes wonder whether there is a God. Are you quite sure?" "Yes," said the aunt very earnestly, "I am quite sure. You see, I have known Him so long and He is so much to me, I am quite sure." The child was satisfied.
If you will turn again to Psalm cxvi. you will see a wonderful unfolding of the secret feelings of David's heart, and as we read it we cannot help saying to ourselves, the man who wrote this experience had very close dealings with some One about his soul. Who is this Some One? Do you know? Perhaps you think your religion is good enough to take you to heaven when you die, but alas! it begins and ends with the "Unknown God." How different to David's experience when he says out of a full heart, "I love the Lord," or as the word means, "I am full of love," and then he tells of his confidence in God; "I believed, therefore I have spoken," as if he had said, "God is so real to me now, I must tell others"; and he adds, "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living." We can walk with God in our daily life just as Enoch did.
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