Knowing God

Selected Scriptures: And from different books: "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. He that loveth knoweth God and is known of Him. He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in Him. If we love one another God dwelleth in us and His love is perfected in us." I John 4: 8 & 16-17

"I thank thee, O, Father, Lord of heaven and earth because Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so it seemed good in Thy sight." Matthew 11: 25-26

"Ye have heard that it hath been said 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy, but I say unto you love your enemies, bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven; for He maketh His sun to shine upon the evil and the good and sendeth the rain on the just and the unjust." Matthew 5:43-45

"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of my Father which is in heaven. But when thou dost thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." Matt. 6:1.

"Also, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward you openly." Matthew 6:4

"Or what man is there of you, whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things unto them who ask him?" Matthew 7: 9-11.

"Like as a Father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear (love) him, for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. Psalm 103:13-14

"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." Psalm 27: 10.

"Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are his mercies; but let me not fall into the hand of man." I Chronicles 21: 13

"Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, but I will not forget thee. I have gravened thee upon the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before me. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort thee." Isaiah 49: 15-16

"Turn ye backsliding children, for I am married unto you, and I will heal your backslidings. Remember ye not the love of thine espousal when thou wentest after me in the wilderness. Because I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you. I know the thoughts that I think toward you, said the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. And ye shall seek me and find me, when ye search for me with your whole heart." Jeremiah 2, 3, 29, and 31.

Texts: "All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Matthew 11: 27

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." John 17:3

Did you ever have someone whom you loved, a husband, a wife, a son, a daughter, a friend, who, through no fault of your own, had become estranged from you, perhaps by listening to someone who slandered you, and looking right at you they saw an entirely different person, and so they walked in darkness, in the shadow of their own suspicion and doubt and unbelief? And have you tried more on their account than your own, to break through the barriers of their unbelief and tried to shine away their suspicion, sometime with temporary success, but often unsuccessfully, inventing new ways and every trying? O, my friends, if you have ever done this it ought to help you to know God and to come into sympathetic fellowship with Him, for this is exactly what He has been doing for us through all the centuries.

Whatever may be your conception or interpretation of the story of the Garden, if you think of it carefully you will see that it means that God, our loving Father, was misrepresented to man. The things He did in the purest love were presented as if done in selfishness, and with ulterior motives, until man feared God rather than loved Him and fled and hid from Him. And through all the centuries since that time, every mythology has been built up on this misrepresentation of God; and every priesthood has flourished by it; being employed by the people to present bloody, appeasing sacrifices to ward off the anger and to modify the malignity of this offended God.

And even Christianity has accepted from paganism this idea of an appeasing sacrifice; so that Christ is supposed to have shed His blood to appease the Father and pay the price demanded before He would admit us to pardon. This misrepresentation of God, is the pagan concept of sacrifice, —the anger and wrath of the gods that must be appeased, but Christian concept of sacrifice is "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth might have everlasting life."

Christ is not the price paid to the Father for our pardon and salvation, but He is the price the Father's infinite love paid so to reveal His love as to break through the shadows our doubt and sin and unbelief have lifted against Him, so we may come to know Him and love Him, and so be restored to unity and fellowship with Him and with each other.

This is the atonement, —the at-one-ment, no mere once for all ceremonial, but a personal, individual heart experience, of restoration to unity and fellowship with our Father. And what the world needs today is at-one-ment. No sinner sees God as he is. Sin cannot live in the presence of His mighty love.

We want to show you how through all the centuries and in many ways, God, our Father has been trying to break down the barriers that doubt, unbelief and suspicion and sin have lifted against Him, that He might bring back the prodigal to the Father's House.

First, in nature, the physical universe around us has revealed His love. "The invisible things;" the spiritual things, the things of His heart's love for us "of God are clearly seen by the things He has made, so that the heathen who have not the Word, are without excuse." Here is beauty for the eye and the eye for beauty. The thing that science ought to be everywhere doing, is consciously thinking God's loving thoughts after Him, and helping the world to see and to know God, and with its wonderful opportunity, it ought to be ashamed that it is not doing it. God is patiently waiting and working for the time to come when love can conquer hate and truth can conquer falsehood and He can be vindicated.

Who can thoughtfully behold verdure, and bloom and fruitage of the passing years? Who can view the marvellous forms and tender tints of the sunset clouds, like some celestial gateway to the eternal city, without feeling his soul thrill with love in flowing in from infinite source of Love? All this revelation in nature is through Christ, for the scripture says, "By Him God made the worlds, and nothing was made without Him but by Him."

And turning from nature to the revealed Word of God; have you ever thought in how many ways and by how many figures God has sought to break through the barriers we have lifted against Him to reveal His tender abiding love for us? Every true human love and every relation of love is appealed to help us to understand Him.

"He that loveth not knoweth not God". This is the negative statement of a spiritual truth. The truth is that since "God is Love, we can only know Him through our love nature and not through our intellect alone. A simple swain can know more about love by the experience of loving than all the philosophers of the world can know by the aid of end speculations on the nature of love.

Even in the Old Testament this is true, for the Spirit of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, was already here, striving with the hearts of men to reveal the Father. "Holy men spake what time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify."

"Like as a Father pitieth his child so the Lord pities them who fear (love) Him. For He knoweth our frame He remembereth that we are dust." A father's love for his child, his knowledge of his weakness, and ignorance, his fearfulness in an unknown and untried world, all is appealed to help us to understand the love, and patience of our Father who art in Heaven. There are some who think that mother love far exceeds the father love, but the love of a true father and a true mother are equal, but they differ in methods of expression. If you think they are not, God has taken advantage of this to show you His Father, Mother Love.

"Can a mother forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget, but I will not forget you. I have gravened you on the palms of my hands." God's love and care exceed the mother love and care. Men sometimes tie a string around their finger that they may not forget, but God, in Christ, by the nail prints in His hands, has commemorated His love for us there, where He never can forget. "When my father and my mother forsake me then the Lord will take me up."

But this is not the end of even the Old Testament effort to reveal God to our slow understanding. "Turn ye backsliding children, for I am married unto you, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousal, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness." Do you get the figure of that? A husband whose heart is true, pleading with his recreant wife, who has deserted him, to return and promising to forgive and love her just the same. Tenderly reminding her of the "love of her espousal", is it not wonderful that God should use such figures to help us to understand Him and bring our wandering hearts back into unison with Him so with each other and to make an at-one-ment.

"I have loved you with an everlasting love". No varying, no mutation, no change in the love of God. "With me is no variableness nor shadow of turning." "I know the thoughts that I think concerning you, saith the Lord, — thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end." God has his plan his ideal for each one of us. It is the expected end; nothing sways Him from this. He steadily works for it and to bring us to it. This is the heavenly pattern for the sanctuary of our souls. All this from the Old Testament; but when we come to the New Testament, we are literally covered up by the abundance of testimony and of the effort of Christ to reveal unto us the Father and His abiding love for us.

"Which of you, if his son ask bread will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent?" This is a figure of interpretation. Our hearts answer NO, I could not do that. Many a father, by the first experience of fatherhood has learned more of God than all the preachers have been able to teach him. The yearning of his own heart over the weakness and helplessness of his first born has been a revelation to him of our Father's love for his erring children and Jesus drew a lesson from this when He said "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him."

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." Why take ye such anxious thought, Consider the lilies. People had come to place God far away. The one true God was one whose dwelling was not with flesh. When Jesus came, He was Immanuel, "God with us". Not then only but now, even unto the end.

"No fable old, nor mythic lore,
Nor dream of bards and seers,
No dead fact stranded on the shore
Of the oblivious years;
But warm, sweet, tender, even yet
A present help is He;
And faith has still its Olivet,
And love its Galilee." — Whittier.

It is by his power of loving that a dog can understand and know his master. The dog is not able to conceive any one of a thousand plans that go to make up the mind of his master, but in simply loving and being loyal many a dog could teach his master lessons. Real love is the same thing in the heart of both.

Moreover, the relation of a dog to his master is wonderfully like the relation of a man to his Maker. God made us for Himself and for our own good seeks to have dominion over us, just so God made the dog for us, gave us dominion over them. As He made in the heart of a man a temple for his own indwelling, so much so that man has been called a worshipping being, just so he put in the heart of a dog a place for the dog to enshrine his master. If a dog loses his master, he becomes a cringing cur and a man who loses his faith in God is in much the same situation, he begins to go down to ruin.

The highest and best in man is spiritual and eternal and is only brought out in him by knowing and worshipping God. "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

And so, the uplifting and ennobling and glorification of man, by the rebirth and development of that which is spiritual and eternal within him is not by intellectual processes; mere education of the mind will never do it. The world is full of head-education, but it is woefully lacking in heart-education. In the higher spiritual realm, the heart must ever lead the way for only he who loves can ever know God, and to know God is the "summum bonum," — the supreme good. Christ revealing God in us and teaching us to love Him is the world's only hope. "God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in Him."

George E. Fifield