Nicholson, Boyd: Companionship With Him ~ 1 John 1

I thank you, and again, it's so good to be here, open the word together. I'd like to read with you from First John chapter one. First John chapter one. Verse three. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. God has a wonderful way of saying a great deal in very few words. When we think of the implications of those few words that we have read just now, they are really staggering. Our fellowship is with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ. Breathtaking. What does it really mean? Well, perhaps we shall try to look into it as God enables us to catch a glimpse of the implications of these words. We read in the Bible, Noah walked with God. And he was preserved through the judgment that came upon the ungodly world and brought into a purged earth. We read that Enoch walked with God, but he was translated out of a world ripening for judgment. Now, these two men are obviously representative men. Noah representing that remnant of faithful believers brought through a time of judgment into a new earth, purged by great tribulation. Enoch, representing that company of people caught up into heaven before the fall of the judgment. Enoch, of course, had this testimony that he walked with God. I suppose it's natural to think that those were the good old days. Of slowly passing years and few temptations. The record shows, however, something quite differently. That Enoch lived in a society of disintegrating morals, of deep ungodliness, in a world that was ripening and ha- fast hastening for judgment. And yet, it is written, Enoch walked with God. This walk was not secluded in some mountain monastery, but Enoch raised a family, he worked, he moved amongst the multitudes, and we read that he heard the ungodly speech of the wicked, and he saw the ungodly deeds of sinners. Yet, in spite of this onslaught of evil upon his senses, it is written, Enoch walked with God three hundred years. Marvelous. Now, I suppose there's a danger in our day of relegating the good days to the old times, or postponing them to somewhere way out yonder in the blue in the distant future. We console our conscience when it convicts us about the paltriness of our Christian testimony. Now, if we were only back there in the good old days, we could walk with God. Or up yonder, when the risks have rolled away, then we could enjoy wonderful times of fellowship with God. But since the good old days are gone forever, and we have not yet crossed over Jordan, we proceed to live for the present, love the transient, and leave the important to some other time. The Bible teaches us, however, that at an infinite cost to the God of heaven, he has made it possible for sinners saved by matchless grace to walk in fellowship with the God of heaven here and now. Indeed, this is expected of every believer. This walk, of course, is a walk by faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. It is also a walk in the light, we read, and it is also a walk in agreement with God, for how can two walk together except they be agreed? Of course, these things challenge our hearts, and we must ask ourselves the question, in what measure have we entered into walking with God and having fellowship with God? We read in First John, truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son. For a little while together, I want to look at these two aspects of fellowship, though, of course, we could spend a great deal more time examining this whole matter of fellowship, beginning with the fellowship of divine persons in eternal days, complete and perfect, without necessity for any creature or created thing. The delight of heaven, the delight of divine persons in one another, yet in their heart, there was this great love, the mystery of the love of God to bring created beings into existence that would share that fellowship and enjoy eternal delights. I suppose we could speak about man's early fellowship with God, about the fellowship of men and women, each one with the other. But I'd like to focus on these two aspects that are before us now, the fellowship with the Father and our fellowship with the Son. To perhaps grasp something of this fellowship, it will be helpful to know something of the nature of the Father, and the character of the Father, and the identity of the Father. As we mentioned rather briefly, illusion the other evening, one of the messages, there are some great difficulties presented to us with regards to fellowshipping with God. And in fact, the Lord Jesus raises three great problems to fellowship with the Father. And the first is that the Father is invisible to the natural eye. Not that any man hath seen the Father. And the second, that the Father is inscrutable to the natural mind. No man knoweth the Father. And the Father is invisible or inaccessible by natural means. No man cometh to the Father. So here are three great problems to fellowshipping with God the Father. He is invisible, he cannot be seen by the natural mind. He is inscrutable, he cannot be known by the natural mind, and he is inaccessible by natural means. How then is fellowship with this glorious being possible? Well, the Lord Jesus has made three great provisions for this fellowship, and they are embodied in himself. The Father is seen by his manifestation in the Son. You remember the Lord Jesus said in John fourteen, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father also. And the Father is known by his revelation, by the Son. Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son and he to whomsoever he will reveal him. The wonderful thing is that the Lord Jesus reveals the Father. To whom does he reveal them? Does he reveal him? The Lord Jesus, in the midst of a busy day, in the midst of a crowd, we read these words, and Jesus answered and said, indicating that his spirit was always in communion with the Father, and Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto. That's one of the wonderful things that God has chosen to reveal himself to people. Paul prays for this in Ephesians chapter one, one of his greatest prayers, for the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Of course, he has revealed himself in the universe as a God of might and power. But that brings no consolation to a poor sinner to know there is a God out there who, with a breath, can blow his universe away and him with it. But he's revealed himself in his word. He's revealed himself in his most wondrous revelation in his own son. He's revealed himself in the Lord Jesus. So then the Father is seen by his manifestation in the Son and his revelation by the Son, and the Father is reached by his mediation through the Son, where the Lord Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. So the Father may be seen by the eye of faith, the eyes of your understanding being opened. The Christian has a sixth sense that the unbeliever does not have. He has what is called the eyes, or literally the eye of the heart. And this is often the very first thing a new Christian says the moment they are saved, oh, I see it now. What happened? The eye of the heart was opened. The high school teacher went out of a gospel meeting one night. We were preaching, Brother Dougal and I in Toronto, and she said at the door, if I could only see it, I would believe it. Why? I said, that's exactly the principle upon which the world exists. Seeing is believing, but that's not the principle of the Bible. The biblical principle is, if thou wouldst believe, then thou should see. And so the eye of the heart, the sixth sense, enables us to see. So the believer, without any surprise or wonder, can sing, and the Lord's Supper, see from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down, and who is to say that we do not see him by the eye of faith? And so the Father may be seen by the eye of faith, and the Father may be known by the revelation of God in his word, and the Father may be reached by the mediation of the Son. Our brother, when he stood to open this meeting in prayer, did a far more wonderful thing than the astronauts have ever done in going to the moon. But it will not be broadcast. But our, our brother, when he stood to pray, and we with him by faith, joined together, we went far beyond the moon and the stars, and we entered into the very sanctuary of God, and we spoke to the God of the universe. A miracle. But we are called to enjoy the sweet communion with the God of heaven, the Father. So we learn something about the nature of the Father. We learn also something of the character of the Father. And there are three great revelations of this that came also from the Lord Jesus. And the first is that he is righteous. We read in John seventeen twenty five, that great prayer that our brother spoke of the other evening. The Lord addressing his father, he says, oh, righteous father. So I suppose the very first lesson in fellowship with God our father is that righteousness is essential for fellowship. As we pursue our study, we open the scriptures, we find that man does not possess righteousness naturally. There is none righteous, no, not one. And that God demands righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, the righteousness of law keeping. But the wonderful thing is that this righteousness that God demands is the righteousness of God himself. How then can we obtain by any means this righteousness that we may have fellowship with God? Thank God we discover it is received by faith. It is the gift of righteousness unto all and upon all them that believe. And so we are counted righteous. It is written down in the eternal record that we have been made righteous in Christ and forms the basis of fellowship with God the Father. This righteousness as a gift makes fellowship possible, but it is the practice of righteousness that makes this fellowship enjoyable. We learn also from the lips of the Lord Jesus that the Father is holy. Oh, how we need to consider this great subject in a, a world full of def- defilement and ungodliness. We need to consider the holiness of God. The Father is holy, and I suppose the second lesson would be that sinners may have fellowship with a holy God. What a miracle. Sinners such as we are may have fellowship with a holy God. How is this possible? Because the blood of Christ removes the obstacle to that fellowship, sin and unholiness. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. The blood removes the obstacle. Oh, the value of the blood of Christ. It always distresses me when I pick up one of the newer translations, and I'm not against translations if they are valid. I have thirty two of them on my library shelf, some good and some not good, but it always distresses me when I see that they have replaced the words the blood for some presumed synonym like death. The doctrine of the blood is a very distinct doctrine, both the shedding of the blood and the sprinkling of the blood that is linked together with specific links through the whole scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, and if we break those links, we do damage to the doctrine of the blood of Christ. Now, when I pick up a new translation, I test it by looking at some of the scriptures that deal with the doctrine of the blood, and if they have moved that or removed it or changed it, I set it aside as an invalid translation. Oh, the value of the precious blood of Christ. In the audience today, there is an expert in the Swahili language, so I'm not going to try any Swahili. But, as I understand it, in the Swahili language, there is no word for the word precious. And so they use a superlative by multiplying the word, and they say in First Peter one, the blood of bloods. The value of the blood of Christ. William Blaine, my fa- favorite poet, wrote of the blood of Christ, and he says, angels could not for sin atone. For if they each a life had given, till empty were the realms of heaven, en all could not have moved one sin or brought the pardoned sinner in, arrayed in garments pure and white to dwell in heaven's unsullied light. Had man but one wrong action done, none but the co-eternal Son could for that single sin atone, and then he must be left alone to sink 'neath heaven's angry wave with none to pity, none to save. Or were there walls for every star that glimmers in the distance far, and myriad souls contained in each whose number thought could never reach, all burdened with a load of guilt and 'neath the wrath of God? Christ's precious blood on Calvary spilt for all atonement could have made. Yea, if for demons he had died, he would for them have satisfied God's utmost claim and made them meet to take their seat, not as before with wing-veiled face, but through the riches of his grace to join with heaven's unsullied throng and sing for a redemption song. Oh, the value of the precious blood of Christ, not only dealing with the sins which had a beginning and will have an ending. The value of the precious blood is an infinite value that reaches out, and if we may say so reverently, because we have to use human terms, enables God to open the treasures of heaven and in his grace pour out upon mankind his undeserved favor. So the precious blood provides an entrance whereby we may enter in to the holy sanctuary of God, speak to the one who sits upon the throne of the universe, yay more, to recline, as it were, upon his bosom, look up into his countenance, and by the spirit say, Abba Father. The fellowship with a holy God is made possible through the shedding of the blood that removes the obstacle to that fellowship. And the blood provides an entrance whereby we enter into the presence of God. But it is honest confession that restores the enjoyment of that fellowship. Our relationship can never change. I have two sons and a daughter. God forbid it, but if they ever wanted to disassociate themselves from me, they could change their name. They could change their fingerprints, or at least have them removed surgically. They could travel to the far corners of the earth and disassociate themselves geographically in every way, but they can never be unborn out of my family. The relationship is an eternal thing with the child of God, but fellowship is something that changes from day to day. We are called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ. The Father is righteous, and righteousness is essential for fellowship. The Father is holy, and poor sinners like you and me, by virtue of the precious blood and the provision of God, may have fellowship with a holy God. And the Father is loving. The Father himself loveth you, said the Lord Jesus in John sixteen. And it is an a- an amazing thing, but the Father actually longs for our fellowship. I'll never forget one time, many years ago, reading that little verse in the Song of Solomon. Suddenly it just opened up to me. You know how it happens. A well-known verse you've known for years. Suddenly the Lord throws a light upon it you never really saw before. O thou that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me hear thy voice, let me see thy countenance, for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. You know, that day, I'll never forget, I was actually lying in bed thinking it over, when that verse shone into my soul in a way I had never seen before. The Lord longs for me to pray for his joy and for his delight, not just that I might get some good thing from his presence. I remembered at the end of the war, my number for release came up. I was sitting in a tent in a, a jungle landing strip in Burma, and the news came in that my number had come up, and my crew and I, we flew back to Pune where our squadron headquarters was, and I was sent off to Bombay to pick up a ship. We waited there for three or four weeks, and finally the postings went up, and I saw my name on the list to be returned home on the SS Sifia. On such a date, I went down to the post office in Bombay, and I put a long distance call home to my mother, whose voice I had not heard in a long time. And I remember that phone call going through to Rome and to Paris, to London and to Glasgow, and the phone ringing, and the click of the receiver in my mother's voice. Hello. I want to tell you, I wouldn't have cared if she'd just gone through the alphabet. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. Is it possible that our hearts have grown cold and we are robbing him of the joy of our fellowship? That the sound of our voice has not been heard in the holy place, and our countenance has been facing the world instead of uplifted to behold his beauty. The Father loves his children and longs for our fellowship, but there are some principles we must remember. Since the Father is a loving Father, and if we want his fellowship, we cannot love what he hates and have fellowship with him. First John chapter two reminds us of this, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, if any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. I cannot love what he hates and expect to have fellowship with God the Father. My friend, there is no magic about the table and the bread and the wine. I cannot live in the world all week and whoop my head off at the pleasures of this world and step into the Lord's Supper and expect to pop up into heavenly places. It doesn't work that way. And I fear many of us did not learn the difference between the Lord's table and the Lord's Supper soon enough. The Lord's table is that place of communion and fellowship I enjoy all week long, or ought to, as I sit before him and enjoy his beneficence. The Lord's Supper is when I come to minister to him that which brings him joy and delight, and the measure in which I enjoy his beneficence and his fellowship all week long will relate exactly to the measure in which I can minister to him at the Lord's Supper. I cannot love what he hates and expect to have fellowship with him. Conversely, I cannot hate what the Father loves and have fellowship with him. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. Man, those are strong, convicting words. You notice what he did not say. He did not say, and hateth the brethren. It's not the brethren in general, it's that brother. It's that individual that really bugs us, that really gets to us. He says, you can't hate that brother and love me too. We cannot have fellowship with the Father if we hate what he loves and love what he hates. As to the identity of the Father, there are three great ascriptions regarding the name of the Father. One of the delightful subjects in the study of prayer is to go through the Bible and examine the way by which men and women of God addressed God. And I may say, not one of them ever engaged in familiarity. Oh, you say, but we know him more intimately than they did in the Old Testament. Did you know him more intimately than the Lord Jesus? How does the Lord Jesus address the Father? O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. O Holy Father. O righteous Father. How did Paul address the Father? Father of glory. How did Daniel address the Father? Just read through those men and women in the Bible who addressed God in prayer and see the form by which they approached God. And I tell you, it will deliver us from talking to God as though he was some corner boy or some chum down at the... at the corner. I fear we have lost the sense of his majesty. One of these greatest descriptions, the Father of glory, is used by the Apostle Paul, and that reflects a truth that should affect our fellowship. We know from the scriptures that this glory should be reflected in the lives of his children. Second Corinthians chapter three and verse eighteen, we read, but we all with open or unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transfigured from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit, as Darby beautifully translate that text. And so, since we who are the children of God, of our Heavenly Father, have a Father of glory, it goes without saying that something of that radiance should be seen in his children. Those who spend time beholding the glory of the Father do not have to wear a button that says I pray a lot. We know them, don't we? You couldn't take a picture of it, and the surgeon can't remove it. The plastic surgeon cannot add it, but we know it when it's there, the radiance of God in a Christian life. We know it, and we know it when it's not there. A dear and esteemed servant of God, whom we know and love, was in Chicago. He was taken out by a mutual friend of ours for a little cup of tea in a restaurant. As they were leaving, the waitress who also took the money at the counter said, uh, to our mutual friend, for the servant of the Lord had gone out of the door. He said, who's your friend? She says, who's your friend? Oh, he said, that's Mr. So-and-so. Do you know him? No, she said, I never saw him before, but that man has the face of an angel. And I wouldn't even have to tell some of you who I'm talking about. And so those who enjoy that fellowship with the Father of glory reflect the radiance of that glory in their lives, and beloved, I believe this with all my heart. In this dark and sordid world today, what the people need is not more eloquent preachers, not more wonderful programs. What they need to see is God manifest in the lives of his people. Radiant and shining. They can beat you in an argument. Perhaps they can disprove some of the things you hold, but there's one thing they cannot beat you with. They cannot deny the light of God in a Christian life. There is a brother living in Florida, saved at age fifty. He was an agnostic out of Roman Catholicism. A man of a brilliant mind who reads and speaks Latin, who learned Hebrew to write a program for the Israelis in computer science, who learned Arabic to do likewise for the Egyptians. A man who knew the philosophers, he was on a speaking basis with them. And he was building a beautiful home. They hired an electrician to do the wiring. That electrician was an elder in the little assembly. His name is Charlie. And this brother told me afterwards, if Charlie had argued with me, I could have tied him in knots. But I could not withstand the light of his life. And through the testimony of that electrician's quiet radiance of God, that dear man has been won to Christ and is being used in a most unusual and wonderful way for God. The Father of lights, another beautiful ascription of God. James one seventeen, every good gift and every perfect act of giving comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow caused by turning. And here James uses words of the astronomer, and he speaks of variableness, and if we are going to have fellowship with this God, then these things are to characterize our lives. The word variableness is really the word paralak, from which we get our English word parallax. That is, the object relative to the viewer's position. But the wonderful thing about God's beneficence is that it doesn't matter what position men take, he still showers his beneficence upon them. He maketh his sun to shine upon the evil and upon the good. He maketh his rain to fall upon the just and upon the unjust. Does that characterize my nature? Or do I just bless my friends and those who are good to me? What about those that don't think so highly about me? A businessman sat in my car one day, and he says, Boyd, I must be doing something good. Look how God has blessed me. I said, you've made a fundamental error. God does not bless you because you are good, he blesses you because he is good. No shadow. The word really there is from the word which we get our word eclipse. And that's the object relative to the giver's variation. It's an astronomical word having to do with variation. With God, there is no change in his beneficence. In Acts twenty seven, you remember that s- shipwreck or that sea storm. I love sea stories, and that's a thrilling one there, where Paul and Luke are in the ship, and Luke is writing down in the bottom of the ship with a guttering lamp, and he writes these words, where neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was taken away. Poor Luke. Mind you, it was a rough storm, and he hadn't seen the light for two weeks, and he was really downhearted. Where's Paul? He's up on the deck, hanging onto a spar or a rope, shouting at the pitch of his voice to be heard above the howling of the mighty wind, Eurocland. And what's he saying? Cheer up, everybody, everything's going to be all right. Paul, are you out of your mind? Again? There's no sail, there's no guide, there's no charts. We've thrown everything overboard. Why are you saying this? I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me. Had the sun been switched off? Were the stars extinguished not at all? For a little while, the clouds had come between, and there was a storm, and it was real. But God and his lights had never changed, and his purpose was fulfilled, and they were cast upon the island, and they were used to bring blessing to the heathen. These are things that characterize me as a child of the Father. If I walk in fellowship with the Father of lights, who gives his beneficence to those who love him and those who don't, does that characterize my life? Or do I change, having variation depending on my circumstances, always either down in the depths or shouting hallelujah? There was a man in a meeting I had, for every sentence I said, he shouted hallelujah. I got through the meeting somehow, and at the end of the meeting he said, my, he says, your people are very quiet here, he says. I said, did you know something about the word hallelujah? He says, what? I said, it only occurs four times in all the New Testament, and never on the earth, only in heaven. I said, think about that. He went out of the door scratching his head. I think he wondered what the lesson was all about. I don't know. And I think maybe sometimes a good old amen or praise the Lord wouldn't shock us too much. But it's the radiance of God, the beneficence of the Father of lights upon our life, and if we walk in fellowship with this God, then it should be evident in the lives of we his people as we deal with others and the display of God in our lives. He's called the Father of mercies. A beautiful title. Second Corinthians one and three, the Father of mercies and the God of all kinds of comfort. Isn't that a beautiful title? What a revelation. And if we're going to walk in fellowship with the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, he's got to do something to us. God comforts us, not to make us comfortable. We shall be comfortable when he comforts us, but the purpose is that we might be comforters of other people who are passing through all kinds of trouble. The Father of mercies, or compassions, as the word is sometimes translated. We are to recognize that we are the daily recipients of the compassions of God. His compassions fail not, they are new every morning. When I was a boy in Scotland, I had a job I really liked. I didn't like getting up so early in the morning, on a cold Scottish morning, but I used to deliver morning rolls by the dozen around the doors. They did that, they do that still in Scotland. Newspaper, a bottle of milk, and a bag of hot breakfast morning rolls. I want to tell you, for a boy on a cold Scottish morning, to have a big armful of a big bag of morning rolls and your face stuck down into the bag, breathing that fresh baked bread smell. That was great. Every morning we put them beside this door, a dozen to Mrs. So-and-so, a dozen and a half to Mrs. So-and-so, and every morning when that lady opened her door, there they were, fresh, every morning. You know, dear child of God, when you open your eyes, every morning, before you have opened your eyes, the Lord has delivered to the door of your life a fresh load of compassions for you to enjoy. So the very first thing we should say when our eyes are open, thank you for the beneficence of this day. An old brother said to me, if I open my eyes in the morning, that's a good day. The Father of Masters, we are the daily recipients of those mercies, and thereby we are indebted to God, Godward. Paul reminds us of this in Romans twelve, doesn't he? I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, not the mercy, the mercies come out of the mercy, but the mercies of the compassions of God, that ye present yourselves, your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is the intelligent thing to do. It is your intelligent worship, the reasonable thing to respond to God in appreciation for all his beneficence. One of the cardinal sins of the human race is the sin of thanklessness. In Romans chapter one, those people that went down to the very dregs of debauchery and departure from God, where did they begin? That when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, but worshipped the creature rather than the creator, neither were thankful. I have a dear father-in-law, he's ninety-two years old, and I think if there's anything that has characterized his life, it has been contentment and thankfulness. He doesn't have a wrinkle on his brow, he has the blood pressure of a youth, he has no heart trouble, he has never had an ulcer, he is happy, he's contented, he goes out visiting the sick, he's ministers in the, at the assembly, and every time you see him, I suppose, almost every time you see him, it's a rare experience if he doesn't respond, you say, Dad, how are you today? Lots to be thankful for, Scotty, lots to be thankful for. I like that, and I believe that's the secret, that's the secret of his testimony to this day. His life exudes that contentment with godliness. He is thankful for the blessings God has showered upon him, blessings we so often take for granted. If we are to have fellowship with the Father of mercies, we are to remember that we are indebted not only Godward, but we are indebted manward. To the saints, we read, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies. New translations don't like that word. I'm sorry they changed it, because it's a very specific word. It's the translation of a very specific word that is not translatable by the word compassion. The word really means spontaneous compassion. If I want to close my hand, I exercise my will and close it. If I want to lift my left arm, I exercise my will and lift it, but I do not will my heart to beat. I do not will my inner organs to function that are essential to the health and life of my body. And when we read that word that is translated in Colossians three twelve, bowels, it's really the word that conveys spontaneous compassion. Spontaneous. Is that what we have? That when we look upon those in need and others, do I have to try and stir up some sense of obligation, we better do something for them? Or is there a spontaneous response because of my fellowship with the Father of mercies? I think of the Savior. As he stood that day looking over the multitude on the s- on the hillside, and he saw them as sheep having no shepherd, it says he groaned with compassion. God help us. Brother Neil and I were preaching in Detroit, having gospel meetings, and there were prayer meetings before and after each meeting, and the meetings were well attended, but nothing was happening. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the meetings were well attended, the messages seemed to go forth, but nothing was happening. A prayer meeting before the meeting on Thursday night, suddenly a young man got up only saved a year. His name was Tom. We'll never forget that prayer, bro. He said, oh God, give us more compassion. And he broke down in tears and sat down. That's where the meetings began, right there. An old man, his name was Tom too, Uncle Tom. He was over eighty, had a massive heart attack, had just come out to the meeting against the orders of his doctor. He stood up right after young Tom, and he prayed like an angel. And they said to him afterwards, Uncle Tom, you shouldn't have gone up to pray, you might have had a heart attack and died. He says, listen, after young Tom prayed, he says, I wouldn't care if I'd had a heart attack and gone to heaven, he says, I couldn't stay in my seat. And the meetings began that night. Souls began to get saved. I tell you, day by day, we should make this our prayer. If we claim to have fellowship with the Father of compassions, what's wrong with me? Why is there no compassion? Why are my eyes dry and no honest tear ever wets my pillow for the souls of men? Why is it so hard for me to spend five minutes on my knees crying to God for lost and perishing sinners? I confess it betrays the fact that I am not in fellowship with the Father of compassion. You remember when Job passed through that terrible time, and those comforters, and don't be too hard on them, they gave Job a hard time, I know, but at least they went to visit him. They didn't just send him a card and say, we're thinking about you. They went to visit him, and they had enough sense to keep silent and not rattled away and broke his heart. They kept silent for seven days. Then they got into it. They didn't understand God's dealing with them at all.