The One Great Reality

by Louisa Clayton

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?

It was this text, "He that cometh to God must believe that He is," which first awakened a worldly gentleman named Brownlow North to think about his soul. God's Spirit showed him that he had never really believed in God and that all his former religion was worthless, "for without faith it is impossible to please God." As soon as he had really learnt to know God, he devoted all his life to preaching the Gospel. He told every one that the first thing we need is to believe there is a God. Many of his friends who were rich and well educated were thus brought to a personal knowledge of God for the first time. He that cometh to God must believe that He is really there. Have you ever been conscious of the Presence of the living God? You must make sure that He is near before you can really pray.

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." [Footnote: Ps. cxvi. 1, 2.] And again, "I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice, and He gave ear unto me." [Footnote: Ps. lxxvii. 1.] 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." [Footnote: Mic. vii. 7.] 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." [Footnote: St. Matt. vi. 6.] 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." [Footnote: Isa. xliii. 26.]

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." [Footnote: Phil. iv. 13.]

We must not be disappointed if we do not get all we want, because God's promise is to supply what we need. We often wish for things which we do not really need.

If ever you lose sight of God, think of the wonderful lesson which Jesus teaches when He says, "If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children," and you, fathers, always get the best you can for them, "how much more" (wonderful words), "how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him." [Footnote: St. Matt. vii. 11.] Have you ever heard God's voice saying to you, I am your Father; love Me, look to Me, trust Me, worship Me: "Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it." [Footnote: Ps. lxxxi. 10.]

A godly man who was a servant used to say, "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God." He felt that God was nearer and dearer to him than any one else. This is what makes God real to us when we feel that He is near and dear.

"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."

This Book in my hand is The Word of God. It is a revelation of God, and the glory of God Himself shines in every page. The first word in it is, In the beginning God. Perhaps you ask me, "Who is God?" I will tell you. "He is my Father." But you say, I am so sinful, I am not worthy to be called His son. That is just what I felt, so sinful, and then He revealed Himself to me as my Saviour. Ah! you say, but I am so far off, how can I find my way to Him? And that was just like me till the Holy Spirit led me to Him. When God reveals Himself to you as Father, Saviour, Comforter, then you will know that God Himself is dwelling in your heart. Perhaps you ask, Will God really come and dwell in me for I am so unworthy? God Himself answers that question; "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." [Footnote: Isa. lvii. 15.] Every one is standing now in view of God and Eternity.

A very long time ago the question was asked, "Canst thou by searching find out God?" [Footnote: Job xi. 7.] 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." [Footnote: Heb. viii. 10.] 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.

A good man said a short time ago, If ever I pass any one in the street with a careworn, anxious face, I long to say to them, "There is God," "Have faith in God." St. John said, "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us and in us—God is love." [Footnote: 1 John iv. 16.] This is the central fact, the one great reality in life, and when once it is grasped there is nothing to compare with it. Why is there so much unrest, so much ungodliness, and lawlessness in our midst? We are forgetting God. The only remedy is coming back to God.

A poor woman who has been a Christian for many years was telling me about her mother's sudden death the week before, and then she added, "I have never known God as I do now. The future used to look so dark, but now that I know Him as the Living God, I can only see life. I cannot tell you what He is to me." Her face, which bore traces of her recent sorrow, shone with a new peace and a new joy, which made me rejoice. I was sure that God had revealed Himself to her in her time of need. Those precious words had come true in her case, "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight." [Footnote: St. Luke x. 21.]

Are you saying, "My soul thirsteth for God, for the Living God"? Then you will have a Personal revelation of God Himself, for that is the only way the life of God can enter into your soul and mine. Are you longing to find God? It is not that we find Him, but that He finds us, making Himself to us the great Reality. We may know wonderful things about Him, but that is not enough. We must really know Him in our hearts!

The very longing which you have for this personal revelation of God comes from the loving Father Himself, and He says, "I will give them a heart to know Me": [Footnote: Jer. xxiv. 7.] so we need never think, ah! it is beyond me, for He promises to give us the heart to know Him.

I had a striking instance of this some years ago. A working man who could not read or write told me that he had been converted at our meeting. He died in the Union Infirmary, and I heard afterwards that he had been a blessing to many in the ward. He said to me one day, "I want to tell you what God is to me." In very simple words he described how he could see it all plainly. How in the beginning, sin came into the Garden of Eden and then God revealed Himself to the sinner so as to bring him back to Himself. Again and again his simple testimony was, I must tell every one what God is to me. This man had learnt to know God personally through his own need as a sinner, so it is not by earthly education that we find God, but through the Holy Spirit's teaching, and then in the Word He reveals Himself more fully.

It is "through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord that grace and peace are multiplied to us," [Footnote: 2 Pet. i. 2.] so if we have not more and more grace and peace coming into our souls it is because we do not really know God.

It makes all the difference in our life when we can say, God is now my living Father; for it means God in His infinite love has taken my life into His, and by this personal link of love I take His life into mine. When He assures us that He is the Living God, it means that He lives and cares for us. All things, great and small, are under His control. We have an illustration of this in the present war. Think of our Navy, scattered over seven oceans, yet all under the control of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Jellicoe. Not one vessel can move without his orders, no ship can be attacked without his knowledge; the wireless apparatus is at work night and day communicating every detail. It brings Sir John word of any submarine sighted, or of any movement in all the seas round our country, and it carries his orders far and near.

When God tells us that He is the living God, we know that He cares for us in the same way as a mother cares for her children. We had a touching illustration of this about a year ago.

Do you remember how we were thrilled with horror when the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria, was shot while driving through the city? He expired in a few minutes, leaving three children. In those few moments he turned to his wife who was seated by his side and said these pathetic words, "Sophie, live for our children." He did not know that she too had been mortally wounded and would be powerless to care for their orphan children.

It is because our Father-God is the living God, that He can say to us to-day just as He said to the Old Testament saints, "I am living for you, caring for you, protecting you." "Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made and I will bear, even I will carry and will deliver you." [Footnote: Isa. xlvi. 4.] When He says to you, "I am God and there is none else," [Footnote 2: Isa. xlv. 22.] does your heart answer, Yes: "Even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God." [Footnote 3: Ps. xc. 2.]