Knowing God--Deeper Than Most Dare! — Woodrow Kroll

The following Stealing the Mind Bible Conference presentation is by Woodrow Krull and is entitled Knowing God, Deeper than Most Dare. For a free catalog of all of our tapes and books, call Compass at 1 -800 -977 -2177 or on the web at www .compass .org.

Thank you so very, very much. Well good evening to all of you. When I was coming in today on the airplane, I took a look at the program and those who will be speaking here, and I can't help but notice the topics are pretty diverse.

In fact, Larry Burkett is going to talk with you about Christian finances, and I suppose if he happened to give you a bum steer on a tip in the stock market today, it wouldn't make much difference. John Ankerberg is here, he's going to talk about apologetics.

And I also notice that Tim LaHaye is here and going to talk about prophecy. I suppose everybody sees prophecy a little bit differently, and if things got turned around a little differently from the way we would anticipate it, I feel pretty sure that Tim LaHaye is not going to get left behind.

Knowing God Beyond Spiritual Growth

So, when I look at these topics, and then I notice my topic, spiritual growth. I'm feeling the pressure already. I want to talk with you today about knowing God deeper than most people even dare to dream.

And I'm going to do it this way. I'm going to do it by telling you my own story, the story of my life. When I was a little boy, my father was a pastor. In fact, he pastored two small churches in western Pennsylvania.

So I would go to Sunday school and church at the big church. That was 125 people. And then we would drive down the highway and I would go to Sunday school and church at the little church, Belton Baptist Church.

One room church, 75 people would be standing room only. Now, as a kid, that meant then that I got two Sunday school services and two morning worship services every Sunday before noon, four of them total.

As a result, when I got to the second church, the smaller of the two churches, as about a six year old boy, my mind would sometimes wonder. Now, one deacon in this church had the bright idea that the little boys ought to sit in the back corner and the little girls ought to sit in the front corner and the adults ought to sit between us to keep us separate, I guess.

And I remember one Sunday, having already heard the Sunday school lesson, sitting there in my little hop-along Cassidy sweater, and I looked up at that crop of little girls. I was about age six and I picked out a girl and I said, now maybe that's the girl I'll marry someday.

And on June 26, 1965, I did. Linda and I have now been married for 74 years. That sounds like too much, I know, but 37 for her and 37 for me. And together, we have learned a lot about the subject of getting to know one another.

Intimacy With God as a Relationship

I want to talk with you tonight about intimacy with God. Getting to know God deeper than most people ever dreamed you could get to know God. And you know, a topic like this, most people would approach this topic by saying, you take the way you relate to God, the way you get along with God, and you take that same model and you relate to your wife or to your husband the same way.

I want to tell you men, most women in this auditorium tonight don't want to be treated the way we treat God. Because intimacy with the Father is something we feel we can never accomplish. And yet what I've learned is that this is a relationship with a being just like a relationship between a man and a woman is.

And what I want to do tonight is I want to talk with you about things I've learned in getting to know my wife, building a relationship with her, and how I've taken those same things and applied them to my relationship to God.

And I have found out that they work for both. And if my father is happy in heaven, my wife is happy here on earth. And I believe my wife is happy here on earth. My father's happy in heaven. So let me talk with you tonight about building a kind of relationship.

What is intimacy with God? Let's start with definitions. What am I talking about when I talk about intimacy with God? Basically, I'm talking about the the feeling of warmth and caring and affection and closeness Just being there.

Just being next to God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks the question, what is man's primary purpose? And the answer is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. It's that business of enjoying God. I want my relationship with God to be one that I enjoy.

I want Him to be glorified. Don't get me wrong. But I'm not here just to talk about glorifying God. I'm here to talk about how to get along with God in a way that you enjoy it. You like it. You love it.

You're close to Him. Let me give you my definition of intimacy with God then. Intimacy with God is wanting to know Him so completely, to be near Him so closely, that you'll stop at nothing to achieve it.

Wanting to be near Him so completely, so close to Him, there is nothing that you will allow to stand in your way in order to become intimate with God. Well, near the end of his life, David commanded his young son Solomon, and he said some very interesting things to Solomon.

One of the things he said is in 1 Chronicles 22, verse 19. He said, now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God. Set your heart and your soul to seek God. That must mean then that becoming intimate with God is possible, but it's not easy.

Thirsting for God Himself

If you and I are to be intimate with God then, what are we going to do? I think the first thing we have to do is determine whether or not we feel it's important for us to be close to God. To get to know God.

To get to know Him deeper than most people understand. Why would you want to develop an intimate relationship with God? Psalm 63 is one of my favorite psalms. I actually have 150 favorite psalms, but this is one of them.

In Psalm 63, verse 1 says this. Oh God, you are my God. Early will I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. And then this expression. My flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.

Now what I learned about David's relationship to God in that passage is this. David's thirst was not for understanding about God. His thirst was not for information about God. He's not looking for some experience with God.

His thirst was for God Himself. And I think a lot of people get sidetracked on trying to build a relationship with God because they're looking for some experience with God. It is God's person you need to get to know.

Not an experience about Him. Not some understanding of Him. David's thirst was for God Himself. And then also I noticed that David's thirst was for a personal God. He says, oh God, you are my God. Yes, there are people who know God.

They've been to Theology 101. They've read a few books here and there and they know God. But they don't know Him in the way that would produce intimacy. Would you wives like to know that your husbands knew you only because they'd read a book about you?

See, our relationship to our wives or our relationship to our husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, those kinds of relationships are intimate relationships because we don't want to know about the person.

We want to know the person himself or herself. God is exactly the same way. David's thirst was for God Himself. David's thirst was for a personal God. And then I noticed thirdly that David's thirst for God was both physical and spiritual.

I understand the spiritual part. But did you notice the second half of the verse that said, my flesh longs for you? See, I can't really get to know God just in my spirit. Somebody has to tell my body that there is a God who cares for me, who made me the way I am, who wants to use me the way I am.

My flesh longs for you. The Hebrew word that is used there, by the way, for longs is the word kama. And it's only used here in the Bible. This is it. One time and that's all. And this word means to become weak through intense longing for something.

You're going to collapse if this doesn't happen. Have you ever heard anyone say, I'm just going to die if I don't win this contest? Well, that's the way David talked about getting to know God. I'm going to die if I can't get to know Him better.

If I can't deepen my relationship with God, it's going to kill me. I believe a lot of people want to be in a relationship with God. They just don't want it bad enough. They don't want it enough to do something about it.

Saint Augustine said in his own way, thou hast made us for thyself and our heart is restless until it rest in thee. Until we discover God and become intimate with him, he is going to be someone up there, some Santa Claus figure, some cosmic grandfather that we send a shopping list up to every now and then when we pray.

And that's about it. David wasn't satisfied with that kind of relationship with God. And you shouldn't be either. Our relationship with God can be much more than it is. So let's talk about what the foundation of such a relationship is.

The Foundation of Intimacy: God Seeks Us

If you're going to have a relationship with God like David had, what is the foundation of that relationship? Well, let me go back to David. He's the guy who seems to understand what it's like to walk with God.

He's the man after God's own heart, after all. And in chapter 42 of the Psalms, the first two verses, David says this, As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God? My soul thirsts for the living God. See, he really wanted it. And the foundation of his relationship with God was not found in him. And that's the good news I have for you tonight.

You can go much deeper in God because God wants you to. If God didn't want you to, friend, you can read all the books you want. You can do all the things you want to do. You can pray all the prayers you want to pray.

You will never get to know God intimately. But the great news is He wants to know you intimately. He wants you to know Him as He knows you. Again, David. David said, I spread out my hands to you. My soul longs for you like a thirsty land.

Psalm 143, verse 6. Now, I have to be honest with you. I'm going to tell you about my life tonight. I'm going to share details of my courtship with my wife. And I'm going to tell you how I learned in that courtship how to fall in love with God.

And the foundation of that relationship with God comes back to three things. Number one, God seeks ever more closeness with you and me. God wants you to be close to Him. If He didn't want it, you would never find it.

You would never be able to accomplish it. Jesus said, I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. God wants you to have that kind of life with Him. That strength with Him.

And because He wants it, He's going to make it possible for you. I read one time about a honeymoon couple. Their names were Doug and his bride, Sylvia Witt. They were married on June 6th, 1981. And Doug wanted, oh, that first night of their honeymoon to be such a glorious event.

So he took his bride, Sylvia, to the hotel and they had reserved the honeymoon suite. And he opened the door and he went into the room and there he saw a hideaway bed, a chair and a table. And I have to tell you, Doug was disappointed.

He thought his money would have got him more than that. But they were in love and it was their first night together. So they pulled that bed out of the hideaway bed and they slept there the first night.

But in the morning, Doug was concerned because he thought the manager of the hotel should have done better by him. So he says to Sylvia, I'm going to go downstairs and complain to the manager of the hotel.

He did. He said, I have to tell you, I was disappointed. I reserved the honeymoon suite. It really wasn't much. And when he described the honeymoon suite to the manager, the manager said, did you open the door on the back wall?

He said, no, I thought it was the closet. The manager went upstairs with Doug, opened the door on the back wall. And there was this spacious, lovely honeymoon suite with a heart shaped bed and flowers and candy, chocolate everywhere.

See, Doug and Sylvia's problem was they didn't go deep enough into the room. They didn't go far enough. And I think the problem a lot of us have is we want a relationship with God. We just don't want to go deep enough to do that.

We don't want to go far enough to do that. We're kind of like that honeymoon couple hanging out on the outside, not knowing there is a lot more to a relationship with God than just that. So, number one, the foundation is the fact that God wants ever more closeness with you.

God Initiates Intimacy

The second thing, the reason I think it's important and possible for you to have this kind of relationship with God is because God initiates intimacy. God is the one who initiates intimacy. Now, when my wife Linda and I were dating, we started dating.

Don't tell your kids this. We started dating when we were 15. Oh, dating. We went to church and sat together at 15. But it began to get serious shortly thereafter. And, you know, I'm a pretty aggressive kind of guy.

But in those days, I was shy, believe it or not. I was very, very shy. And after six months of dating, I had not yet kissed. My girlfriend. And I remember it as if it were yesterday and the lightning bolt hit me right in the head.

She had waited long enough. And one night under the moonlight, six months into our relationship, she nearly knocked me out. Kissed me, almost knocked me right over. She initiated that process with me.

And once I found out it was OK, I initiated back. And I've discovered in my relationship with God that God initiates intimacy. God is the one who makes it possible for you to be intimate with him, to get to know him deeper.

And he's the one who wants it. And he comes after it. Isn't it true? The Bible was very, very clear that God draws us to himself. We don't go looking for him. He comes looking for us. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

It was God who went after them. Genesis chapter three. Noah, Genesis chapter six. It was God who showed grace to Noah. Abraham, Genesis chapter 12. God called Abraham. Abraham didn't seek the call of God.

God called him. He met Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, the 70 elders on the mountain. It was Jesus who came to Peter, Matthew chapter four, and the disciples. Jesus came to the two on the road to Emmaus, Luke chapter 24.

He came to Saul on the road to Damascus, Acts chapter nine. He came to seek and to save those who were lost. He always initiates the process with us. And that's why it's possible for you to believe you can go deeper with God, deeper than most people dare.

Because he's coming after you. And if you and I sit still long enough, stop running long enough, it's possible, friends, we can become intimate with God. Why? Because the foundation of that intimacy is the fact that God wants it.

And he initiates it. Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. A .W. Tozer is one of my favorite authors. And A .W. Tozer in his great, great book, The Pursuit of God, says this.

We pursue God because and only because he has first put it an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. The impulse to pursue God originates with God. But the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him.

God initiates the process. You pick it up where God initiates. And the third reason why I think the foundation is already laid by God is this. God is only knowable through the person of Jesus Christ. Oh, sure.

You can read your Bible and understand that there is a God. You can understand that he is a kind God. He is a creator God. He is a sovereign God. He is a God in the midst of his people, although his people could never see him.

You and I get to know God the father through God the son. So when you ask yourself, how can I get to know somebody I can't even see? How can I get to know somebody I can't talk to face to face? God says, I got it covered.

I sent my son in skin so you could see me. Jesus assumed a body to help us to be intimate with the father. John chapter one. He was born as a babe in a manger in a stable. Luke chapter two. God became a man to dwell among us so that we could become intimate with God the father.

Knowing the Father Through Jesus

If you have a Bible there, I would like to follow along. I want to read a passage from John chapter 14. John chapter 14 is just, oh, what an incredible passage. And we know John 14, one through three.

And as great as that is, I want to zip right through that to get to what I think is important tonight in John 14. John 14, verse one, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, Jesus says, believe also in me.

Now, these are the words of God, the son. You believe in God, believe also in me. I know that the words of Jesus, because, well, they're in red in my Bible. But clearly these are the words of Jesus. He says, you believe in God, believe also in me.

Verse two, in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there, you may be also.

And where I go, you know, and the way, you know. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. And how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, now look at this. I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me. And then, you know, the problem with being verse seven in this passage is it's in the shadow of verse six. You know, it's kind of like living in the shadow of someone great.

Verse seven is important in your intimacy with God. If you had known me, Jesus said, you would have known my father also. And from now on, you know him and have seen him. Now, I know everybody's down on Thomas, the doubting Thomas.

I want to tell you that the doubter in this passage is Philip, not Thomas. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father and it is sufficient for us. Now, wait a minute, though. Jesus just said, if you've seen me, you've seen the father.

Philip says, show me the father and that'll be good enough. Verse nine, Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long? And yet you have not known me, Philip. He who has seen me has seen the father. So how can you say, show us the father?

My friend, if you want to get to know God, don't worry about the fact that he's up there somewhere. Don't worry about the fact that he's some distant deity out in the middle of nowhere. God came to dwell among us so we could get to know the father.

He wants you to be intimate with him. He sent his son for that purpose. The real issue, then, is how do I do this? And I want to cut to the chase. I want to tell you how you can become intimate with the father, how you can get to know God.

Trusting God's Unchanging Character

Now, this is not magical. It's not mystical. This is just good common sense that I learned from dating my wife. And I figure if I can get to know that woman, I can get to know God. She's not here tonight, so I can say that how to develop intimacy with God.

Five things I want you to notice from tonight. Number one, intimacy requires trust. You will never get to know God until you learn to trust him. Intimacy always requires trust. You see, the reason one spy does not fall in love with another spy is because they can never trust each other.

And the reason you need to understand God is because the character of God is such that you could trust him. D .O. Moody used to say the character is what you are in the dark. Well, God is never in the dark.

You can trust the character of God. God never lies. We're told in Titus chapter one, verse two, God who does not lie. God never goes back on his word. Numbers chapter 23, verse 19. God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent.

Has he said and will he not do? Of course he will do. God never lies. He never goes back on his word. You can trust his character. And better than that, he never changes. James chapter one, verse 17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation nor shadow of turning.

Everything we have, everything we enjoy, everything we are, every raindrop he sends us comes because God doesn't change. Now ask yourself, if God was going to change, if God would be different tomorrow than he is today, is he better today or would he be better tomorrow?

If he changes, will he change for the better or will he change for the worse? If he changes for the better, then what kind of a God is he today? If he changes for the worst, what kind of a God is he going to be tomorrow?

God cannot change because when you're perfect, you don't need to change. This business of intimacy always requires trust. If you're going to get to know God, you have to learn how to trust God. I got to tell you, friends, June 26, 1965, I stood before the pastor who happened to be my father.

Linda and I pledged our love to one another and I said to her, I will trust you and I will always be faithful to you. Now, she's not here tonight. I came from Nebraska myself this afternoon on the airplane.

The reason I am here and not worried about her back there and the reason she is back there not worried about what I'm doing here in Colorado Springs is she trusts me and I trust her and I don't go around life worrying about what my wife is doing because I trust her.

A Right Relationship With God

Our relationship is built on trust. If you want a relationship with God, you've got to learn to trust him. That's number one. Number two, intimacy with God requires a right relationship. You see, coming closer to God, getting to know God deeper than most people want deeper than most people ever dare coming closer to God in your relationship does not require you move a lot of distance.

You don't have to move light years, but you might have to move some. If you're not as intimate with the father as you'd like to be tonight, then you have a little move to make. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you.

James chapter four verse eight. That's pretty good advice, but how do you do that? You know, the Bible is filled with great advice and after the great advice, there is usually an example that gives you exactly what you must do in order to do that.

James four verse eight says, draw near to God and God will draw near to you. How does that happen? The very next verse, cleanse your hands, you sinners and purify your hearts. You double minded, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.

Now, there it is. Cleanse your hearts and your hands. Humble yourself before God and you find yourself in the arena of a right relationship with God. And it will be an intimate relationship with God. You know the old story.

Mom and Pop are driving down the road in their pickup truck. Mom looks at Pop and says, how come you never sit close to me the way you did 20 years ago? And Pop says, I'm not the one who moved. God has not moved away from your relationship.

Spending Time With God

If you're not enjoying God the way you want to, get a right relationship. Let God make it right. Thirdly, if you want to know God better than you know him now, intimacy requires time. Now, maybe I took longer in dating my wife than most people take.

We dated a couple of years in high school. I graduated, went off to college, Bible college and spent three years in a Bible college, graduated and then came back home and married Linda. But during the time that we were dating and I was off at college, I would come home as often as I could.

I had a 1957 Chevy. I wish I had it today. I'd drive that Chevy home and I'd go to her house and we'd sit on the couch. And we'd sit on the couch. And we'd go to church. And we'd go to Youth for Christ.

And we'd go here and there. There's not a whole lot Baptists can do. So we would spend a lot of time together, you know? And while I was spending that time with her, I was getting to know her. I wasn't reading about her.

I wasn't taking courses on who she is. I was discovering who she is. You want to get to know God, you need to spend some time with God. You cannot be holy in a hurry, friends. Take time to be holy. Speak oft with the Lord.

One of the keys to a strong relationship with the Father is spending time with Him. Intimacy requires time. You and I are not the kind of people who like to take a lot of time to do anything. Isn't that true?

Stillness Before the Father

And then we complain because our relationship with God is not what we want it to be. And we wonder what the problem is. I am the problem. Intimacy requires time. Number four. Four of the five things I want you to remember about a relationship with God.

Intimacy requires stillness. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, when I would come home from college, actually we were married and I went to a liberal arts institution after that and then seminary and graduate school.

But in those first years, when I was in the Bible college, I would come home and, as I said, we would sit on the couch. And sometimes I would be at her house six, eight, ten, twelve hours a day if I could.

Why? I was only home for a weekend. I was only home for a short period of time. I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. And we would sit in stillness on the couch. Sometimes we would talk.

Sometimes we wouldn't talk. But the key was we were together. We were getting to know one another. I would look into her eyes. She would look into mine. And we would sit before one another. I have to tell you, she had two little sisters, five and four, bless their hearts.

And when I would sit there on the couch next to Linda, they sometimes would like to come and sit on my knee, you know? They were not the ones I wanted to sit on my knee, but they were the ones who climbed up there.

You know, they're great girls. I just wanted to drop kick them off the porch. I did not want them around when I was getting to know their sister. They're my sister-in-law now. I love them. But she's the one I really love.

And I wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to be still before her. And yet, our lives are such that it's hard to be still, isn't it? Some of you have read Henry Blackaby's book, Experiencing God. Henry Blackaby makes a comment in that book that I think you have to stick on the sticky side of your mind, friends, and never forget.

He says, we are a doing people. We always want to be doing something. Once in a while, someone will say, don't just stand there, do something. I think God is crying out and shouting to us, don't just do something, stand there.

Get to know Me. Adjust your life to Me. We are human doings. We need to be human beings. We need to get to know God in a way that doesn't take us hither and yon in doing so. Sitting quietly and stillly with the Father is the best way I know to get to know Him.

And I have to tell you, I have a busy life like you do. I do a daily radio program. Actually, I do two daily radio programs, Back to the Bible and a short feature program called the Bible Minute. The Bible Minute is 90 seconds long, but that's okay.

You can do that in radio. I mean, after all, if the hour of decision can be a half an hour, the Bible Minute can be 90 seconds. And I also do a weekly television program and a lot of other things. I'm a doing people just like you are.

But I am learning, friends, that intimacy with the Father comes not by doing, it comes by sitting still. I used to get up in the morning and I'd spend an hour in my time with the Lord God and I would read for half an hour and then I would pray for half an hour.

I've got to tell you, it is easier to read God's Word for half an hour than it is to stay awake and pray for half an hour. But I don't do that anymore. Now I take my time and I divide it in thirds. I read for a third of the time.

I pray for a third of the time. And then for a third of the time, I do nothing. I just sit there. I let God speak to me. I let God impress upon me what I have read and what he wants me to know about what I have read.

Silence and Listening to God

I let that time be my being time. And I have to tell you, my relationship with God has gone straight up since I started doing that. Intimacy requires stillness. Number five, intimacy requires, and it's going to be hard here, silence.

Intimacy requires silence. You know, the time you're talking with God is not the time you're learning. It's the time you're informing God. And when Linda and I would get together on our dates, we'd sit there and we'd not even say a word to one another.

We'd just look into one another's eyes. We really didn't have to say a word to one another. We were becoming intimate through the stillness and the quietness of that hour. In the preface to his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A .W. Tozer laments, he says, we have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in enduring silence.

Now, if you don't get my message, at least get his. What does it mean to sit silently before the Lord God? It means to do what God wants you to do, friends. Habakkuk 2, verse 20, the Lord is in His holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before Him. Zephaniah 1, verse 7, be silent in the presence of the Lord. I think our relationship with God will deepen if we shut up and sit still and let God minister to our lives.

Now, this is not hard stuff. And it's not theory about what you ought to do with God so you could do it with your friends and your spouse. It's what I've learned from my spouse. What I can do in my relationship with God, say with the apostle that I may know him.

Philippians 3, say with the psalmist, I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I shall not be moved. You will show me the path of life in your presence as fullness of joy at your right hand, our pleasures forevermore.

Now, if God's right hand is the place of pleasure forevermore, I'm going to hang out with Him every hour I get. I'm going to spend time with Him. I'm going to get to know Him and I'm going to allow my relationship with Him to deepen.

And I don't have to buy anything in order to do that. I don't have to take anything in order to do that. In fact, I have to stop doing a lot of things I am doing in order to deepen my relationship with God.