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And for those encouraging words, and to you, my brothers and sisters, a very good morning. You will have gathered that I do not look to be a preacher. That I cannot help. I apologize sincerely for it. By the extraordinary generosity of the conveners of this conference, I am allowed the pleasure of addressing you on no less than three occasions, and I would like publicly to thank the conveners for this pleasure that they have given me. Whether you will thank them is altogether a different matter. Emblazoned as a title over these three talks, I wish to write the clarion call back, back to the gospel. Perhaps that might seem strange to some of you, to hear a convention preacher urging you to come back to the gospel. Surely some of you will say to me the need nowadays is not to get God's people back to the gospel, but to get them to move forward into the deeper things of God. The trouble, so I am sometimes told, with God's people in general, is that so many of them never get any further forward than the gospel. So that a call to come back to the gospel might seem to you at first hearing, uh, to be absurd. Certainly, I am not denying, I want to emphasize with all my heart, our need as a people of God to follow the example of the Apostle Paul. When he said, brethren, I count not myself yet to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal, the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ. Nothing I shall say in the course of these talks, as I urge you to get back to the gospel, is meant to reduce the power of this example of the beloved apostle. We should be stretching forward, we should be making progress. There is a goal to be aimed at. We shall suffer loss if we come short of it. Yet, while this is obviously so, very clearly marked in a number of the New Testament epistles is the repeated message that however much progress we make, whether in our individual lives of spirituality, or in the affairs of the church in public, however much progress we make in the development of our evangelism and its strategies, I repeat, there is a powerfully repeated exhortation in the New Testament epistle, that from time to time we come back to the gospel, just to make sure, if for no other reason, that our progress has been and still is in full accord with the gospel of our salvation. Let me cite you some examples. The dear Galatians, our early fellow Christians, when first they heard the gospel and received it, were fired with such enthusiasm that if it had done any good and it had been possible for them, they would have plucked out their very eyes to give them to the Apostle Paul. And in all their estimation, there was none like Paul, save above him Jesus Christ our Lord. And then, having begun in the spirit, they went on, if you please, to make progress, so they would have called it, and were thinking to be perfected in the flesh. They were imbibing and accepting certain doctrines of various teachers that came among them. While they were represented as progress, were utterly inconsistent with the gospel of their salvation and would have ruined their genuine spiritual progress. Or take the case of the Corinthians. A remarkable bunch of believers were the Corinthians, and I must moderate my language about them. I have to meet them yet in glory. You'll see, but if there were two ways of doing a thing, a right way and a wrong way in the church, they could be relied upon to do it the wrong way. Good old Corinthians. More interesting to me is the way that the Holy Apostle corrects their supposed progress. Not so much by quoting rule one thousand and seventy six in the rule book, although to be sure, Paul isn't behind laying down his commands as the apostle of the Lord. But what interests me is the general argument many times repeated in that epistle. Oh, my dear brethren, he says, your shocking behavior, you can't do that. Oh, why can't we do that? Well, because that is in complete contradiction to the very gospel itself. Many times as he repeats his argument, as God willing we shall see on Thursday morning. Or there is the case of the Colossian believers, marvelous converts fit to cheer the heart of any evangelist. They not only had received the word, it had become implanted, it had nurtured in them a tremendous growth and fruitfulness, and with it the desire to make progress in the spiritual life, in true spirituality. When they were of a sudden beset with dangers, there came once more sundry preachers and advocates of marvelously sounding recipes for the development of the spiritual life. There was philosophy in the form of theosophy. There was observance of religious days and ceremonies. There were instructions for developing techniques to attain to marvelous visions, such as visions of angels and things. There are forms of rigorous discipline, ascetic discipline, that outwardly were very impressive. These dear believers, in their very desire to go on and know God, stood at that moment in peril, lest they should embrace and follow recipes for the development of the spiritual life that would have ruined their spiritual life. Since these recipes were utterly inconsistent with the ble- gospel of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. This then, the argument of my three talks, the clarion call for us all, that however much progress we have made in this or that division of spiritual life, we need from time to time to come back to the gospel to see whether our progress is indeed consistent with its basic tenets. This morning, as I issue that call to us all, I have in mind in particular that area of spiritual life that is technically called spirituality. Let me try to explain what I mean by spirituality. It would be better, I suppose, for me to describe it rather than define it. Spirituality is the soul's hunger after the living God. The longing of the human spirit expressed by the Psalmist when he said, as the heart panteth after the water brooks, so my soul longeth after thee, O God. One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord. The soul's hunger and thirst after God. It springs from the realization that God is more important than all else. God more important than his universe. God more important than his gifts. God himself more important than even our work for God. In the hustle and bustle of our busy world, sometimes the fires of our spirituality burn low. Oh God, grant us, in the brief hours of this convention, that we might time f- find time, above all else, for God. That rising from our redeemed hearts, there might come up to the blessed Savior and Son of God, the longing of our hearts to know him, our discovery that he is more important and more wonderful and more beautiful than all else. Spirituality, the desire for deeper, more personal, more real relationship with God, involving the deepest of our hearts' affection. To know God, to behold his glory, granted that we see it now as in a mirror, yet with open face may we behold it, a desire to behold the beauty of God, till our own characters be transformed, inch by inch, from glory to glory, to grow more like the blessed Lord Jesus. It is our hope for eternity that when we see him, we shall be like him. But as the Apostle John so practically observed, everyone that has this hope in him of being one day like the Savior, will not say, well, that's it, so I can wait till I see him, and it will all be done for me in a second. Why should I bother to be like him now? No, no. The hope, the hope that one day on seeing the blessed Savior, I shall be like him burns within me, if it is real, with the desire to purify myself now that I shall be progressively more like him. Spirituality. Not just to know God, not just to behold the glory of God and be like him. The longing of the spirit to be ever more closely united with the Lord and one with him. For he that dwelleth in love, says the holy apostle, dwells in God, and God in him. Spirituality then. Let this be the background and the foreground of what we shall be thinking about this morning. If we wish for a biblical description of spirituality, we shall not find a better, surely, than the words of our Lord Jesus in the Gospel by John in chapter seventeen. Perhaps we may read it here together. John seventeen and verse 20. Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word, that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that thou did send me. And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given unto them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that thou didst send me and lovedst them even as thou lovedst me. Father, that which thou hast given me, I will that where I am, they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world knew thee not, but I knew thee, and these knew that thou didst send me. And I made known unto them thy name, and will make it known, that the love wherewith thou lovest me may be in them, and I in them. So that in this passage of Holy Scripture given to us by our blessed Lord, we meet concepts so high and glorious that we should not dare to believe them unless we heard them come from the mouth of our blessed Lord Jesus himself. Wonderful things, my brother, my sister, that beggar the human imagination to grasp. Oh, what a wonderful thing it would have been if our salvation had simply amounted to this, the cancelling of all our debts and the forgiveness of our sins. That alone would have merited ten million hallelujahs, undying through eternity. Wonderful it would have been if, in addition to salvation, eh, to forgiveness, salvation had secured us some little collapsible seat round some mucky little corner of the celestial. Except, of course, there are no murky corners, nor any collapsible seats. But who could cope with this? Not just forgiveness. Not just a place in God's heaven, but oneness with the divine persons themselves. What staggering concept. What awesome reality does Jesus Christ our Lord here talk about to us in these simple words, a unity between us and the very persons of the Godhead, modeled on that glorious unity between the Father and the Son. Within the Holy Trinity, each person is and remains distinct. As the theologians tell us, the Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Father. So is it with the redeemed, we shall never be God. There will be no blurring of our human personality, nor merging in the Hindu sense with the absolute. And yet, I should require more than the archangel's voice to explain it. God, save me from one extreme or t'other. And yet, and yet, and yet. A oneness. How can I hear it without being moved? A oneness between me and you, my brother, you, my sister, and all of us. With the persons of the Godhead. A oneness in mind, in love, in purpose, in moral character. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Sons and daughters of the living God, and one with him. Modelled on the relationship between Christ and his Father. Oneness within the divine persons. First of all, the mutual indwelling of the Father and the Son. I pray that they may be one, even as we are one, I in thee and thou in me. The mutual intercommunion and interpenetration of the persons of the Deity. I wish them to be one like that, not merely among themselves, but one in us, who can bear the weight of glory that that such words express. And in the second place, Oneness oneness. by the dwelling of the Father and the Son in us. I pray, he says, that they may be one, even as we are one. In this sense, I in them, and thou in me. And you may record the buzz that went round the upper room. When it began to dawn, however dimly on the apostolic minds, that across the table there sat, not just the carpenter, not just a rabbi, Lord and teacher, but across the table in that upper room sat God himself. Don't you understand, said our blessed Lord to Philip. You asked me to show the Father. Don't you understand it? He that has seen me has seen the Father. How else do you account for the works I do, said he, and the words I say, I speak and do them not from myself. The Father is in me. Marvelous. But how will the biggest theologian that was ever invented begin to explain this mystery? God in Christ, yes. But God in Christ in In me. me. And then our blessed Lord goes on to talk about it, doesn't he? The need that this oneness shall be constantly and ever more perfected. Not yet perfected. I have already given them, says he, the glory which thou gavest me that they might be one. But as yet our hearts have not opened as fully as they could, have they? Our hearts are veritably closed rose buds, aren't they? They need to be opened, that this wonderful oneness between us and the Savior be expanded and developed, so that the world shall come to see, not what spankingly good Christians we are. Ho ho. That'd be a long while seeing that. But they might come to see that God has loved us, even as he loved his son. Oh, how wealthy I should appear to you. You began to catch the faintest glimmer of this. But God loves me, do you know it? You can't see it very well. God has loved me as he has loved his son. Nor is that enough for Christ. Father, I will, says he, those whom thou has given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, the glory I had with you before the world was. Will you love me then? And now words must fail us and become cheap little empty tin cans. As we try to express the reality. What shall it be, my brother and sister, when at last we see him? Face to face with Christ, my Savior, face to face. Oh, what shall it be when with rapture I behold him and see that face, to see which is the chief purpose for which we were created. There will be no higher glory, my brother. There will be no higher occupation, though ten thousand occupations there will be, than to see that face, to see which was the purpose of our making. Till that comes, the work of our deep, the deepening of our spirituality proceeds. Mark now, if you will, before we turn to other things, how, according to Jesus Christ our Lord, our spirituality is to be deepened. This, says he, is the process. I have made known to them thy name and will make it known. It is by the blessed Savior himself, making known to us the name of God and what God is really like in his character. It is by his making known that name, as he did publicly at Calvary and through his burial and resurrection, as he does by his spirit, in the depths and undergrowths of our minds and hearts, cutting through the tangles of misunderstandings, healing wounds that cause us to doubt the love of God when life's trials and tribulations come. Till, like Job, we might be tempted to think that God himself is unfair and cruel and has forgotten us and has forgotten to be merciful. It is by the declaring of the name of God that the blessed Savior makes known the Father and fills our hearts with love that learns to trust, brings us ever nearer to the consummation of that unity with God. Spirituality, according to our blessed Lord. Why do we need constantly to get back to this glorious gospel? We need to for its own sake, this is life's chief business. Oh, my dear sister, my brother, if you have caught the faintest glimpse of this potential glory, you will not rest with humdrum pedestrian spiritual experience. You will say with Paul, I follow after that I might apprehend that for which I was apprehended of Jesus Christ. It will become life's chief business for you. Not maybe your chief work, that could be looking after the children and changing the nappies and cooking the vegetables and driving the old pen, but nobody does it these days, manipulating those wizard computers, or whatever it is you do. It may be your work, but your chief business. The Christ should use every detail of life, through which, by his grace, to reveal the Father's name. It is a tough course. I tell you now, God is love, but God can be tough. You serve no sentimental mamby-pamby God. There are no sorrows scarcely that God is not prepared to take us through. If only they will serve to make us more like Christ and to enjoy God ultimately, the better. Life's cheap business. But then we have to face our modern world, of course. And here for us, as for the Colossians, there lurk dangers. Dangers, in fact, associated with the quest for spirituality, strange as that may sound. But then you'll see the s- spirituality taught us by Holy Scripture is not simply a phenomenon known only to Christianity. There are other spiritualities in this world. Almost every serious religion has its forms of spirituality. And if I read modern situation aright, there is rising through the sands of human experience a surging tide of spirituality around this world. And not all of it is good that there is such a tide, witness just one small detail. The twenty five volume series of books on world spirituality, edited by McGinn and Meyendorff, published in nineteen eighty six. Contributing to that series of world spiritualities, you will find some evangelicals. We need, therefore, to be wise to discern between what is good and healthy and of God. And what is not of God, and is not good, and is not healthy. And how shall we do that? Except we come back to the gospel. One new element that has not been present perhaps for centuries is the contribution of science to spirituality in these days. A growing number of scientists there are, as you know, who have come to the realization that reason by itself can never explain the whole of the universe. So what to do? As Professor Paul Davies put it, the fact we find ourselves on this planet with minds is an extraordinary thing. With minds that can understand a great deal of how the universe works. How can it be an accident? Where did it all come from? There must be, say an increasing number of scientists, there must be an intelligence behind this universe. Marvelous as they get so far, isn't it? But then they hasten to say, some of them, not all of them, thank God, but some of them, like Professor Paul Davies, sparkling and glorious scientist he is, that whatever it is behind the universe is not the God of the Bible, for sure. Or the God of Jesus Christ. How could you then get beyond it all to the outside realities, if reason can't take you there? Paul Davis in Britain and Australia, your Rudy Rocker here in the States will tell you that it is now respectable for scientists to talk in the possibility of coming to know ultimate reality through mysticism. You may take the great leap out of reason into mysticism and come to know the great reality that is out there. Call it the absolute, the one, mind, call it what you will. Anything, of course, other than the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ. When this kind of science grows into a swell and permeates our schools, and children are no longer taught sheer atheism through atheistic evolution, but taught that the mystical road is appropriate and respectable even for scientists, and this is the way through to ultimate reality. And they will then agree that all religions point to it, except for the unique claims of Jesus Christ, of course. Then you will have a pressure for which our young people need to be. There is another element in it all, and here I shall have to introduce to you names that well s- may well sound barbarous. Do forgive me, it'll make sense in the end. A thumbnail sketch and very rapid tour of a little ancient history. It is important to know our history so that we may understand our present. So first I take you back to an ancient Greek philosopher who lived in the third century AD. There's a special bonus at the, uh, reward at the end of the conference if you listen to this bit. His name was Plotinus. He was a Greek, founder or co-founder of the philosophy known as Neoplatonism. Like Greeks, he thought long and hard about what lay behind our universe. Being a pagan, he didn't call it God so much as he called it the One, to distinguish that from the multiplicity of phenomena that we see all around us. So what could you know about the One? He developed a way of approach. It is called the negative way. You start from below with things that are obviously not candidates for being likened to God. Mud, for instance, and stones. Well, God isn't like that, obviously. Well, of course not. Well, move a bit higher. Animals. But no, no, God can't be like them because we're better than animals, and uh, God must be better than us. Right. Well, come up then. Is he like us? Well, he could be, but then obviously not in a lot of respects. And so you work yourself up as high as you can go, and when you've reached the highest, says Plotinus, you come to this, that God cannot be described or known. Reason lands us in complete ignorance. Oh, said the Greek Neoplatonist Plotinus? The modern scientists are beginning to say the same thing. What's to do then? Said the Greek ph- philosopher Plotinus. What you cannot know by reason, you can know by ecstatic vision. For when you admit your ignorance, you can find the veil ripped aside, and in ecstasy of vision you may behold the One and be united with him, so observer and observed are one. He claimed to have that experience six or seven times in life, the road to mysticism. You say, why bother us with that funny bit of knowledge? Well, because through the work of another good man who rejoiced in the name of, uh, as we now call him, Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite. A mouthful, isn't it? Dionysius, so called, was a professed Christian. He wrote a work about the names of God, how God had revealed his name to us, as to Moses at the burning bush, as in Jesus Christ our Lord, what he called the descending way, the positive way for God to make himself known. He said that was very good, but unfortunately it wasn't good enough, because knowing everything you can know about Jesus Christ left questions about God unanswered. So he now wanted another way to find out God. What way? This professed Christian took over the philosophy of the aforesaid Plotinus, the negative way. Ascending upwards until by reason you come to absolute pitch darkness, and God cannot be known at all. But then, oh yes, you can have an ecstatic vision and see this great light and be merged with it. And when you see this great light, there's nothing you can say about it. It is utterly indescribable. It has no name. There is no Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. You know that it's there, you can say nothing about it, and you cannot comprehend it. And this, the aforesaid Dionysius said, was the acme of s- Christian spirituality. You say, why bother about him either? Because I have to tell you, that the writings of that man were received into Christendom. They formed the basis of the spirituality of the great Eastern Orthodox churches up to this present time. They who preach the gospel in those parts should take notice. It cannot be of God, you say. Of course it can't. This supposed negative way of coming up to complete ignorance, did Jesus Christ use it? Does Christ purpose to bring us to a stage when we see some great light, and it has no name. Oh, what a sad contradiction of the gospel it is. We heard our blessed Lord say that the way to spirituality is this: I will declare thy name. My brother, my sister, you will never to all eternity get yet get beyond Jesus Christ, nor see anything more of God than you see revealed in the Word of God and God's blessed Son. Why should we trouble about that either? We live in the West. The writings of Dionysus were brought to the West, of course. A famous Englishman wrote a book called The Cloud of the Unknowing, where he holds out this old pagan way of knowing God under the guise of its being Christian. When you next read books on spirituality written by evangelicals, just check how far they quote this work, The Cloud of Unknowing, as though it were some good help towards spirituality, when all the time it involves desecration and dishonor to the name of our blessed Lord. And finally, there is a marked tendency, even in some evangelical quarters these days, to go in for spirituality of the non-rational kind. Kind. It is highly dangerous. All visions given to God's people in scripture were accompanied by rational words, or the explanation given rationally afterwards. Irrational, unrational, non-rational spirituality you may expect of a Hindu, of a pagan Greek. It is not the spirituality offered to us by our blessed Lord, who is the Word of God, communicates both to our minds and to our hearts, but ever communicates according to his nature by declaring the very name of God. In all our spirituality, God see to it that we are constantly rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord.