The Majesty of God — Leonard Ravenhill

The Majesty of God in Isaiah 40

Okay, Isaiah 40. I read recently in I forget where, where someone said they thought this was the most beautiful piece of prose in the whole world. It really talks almost all the time about the majesty of God.

I have read it a number of times this week and each time when I've read it I felt I wanted to kneel down and say how great thou art, how great thou art. There's no way we can comprehend God, of course.

God cannot be explained, but he can be experienced. A lot of things you can't explain. Ask somebody if they're in love, they say yes, they will define love. Very simple, isn't it? No? I can define mine, she's sitting over there.

But anyhow, but to explain it in vocabulary is something entirely different. Let's just take different points of here. Verse 11 is a popular verse, of course. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them into his bosom.

But two verses I would like us to think of in the shape of a question here in verse 18, which is repeated again in verse 25. To whom then will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto him? It's changed a little in verse 25.

To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal, saith the Holy One? There is no way to compare anyone or anything with God. Only contrasts. You know, some people go, when they go to Rome, they go to the Vatican, they go to St. Peter's.

They're overwhelmed with the Sistine Chapel, the marvelous ceiling, which was so beautifully done centuries ago. When the Pope appeared on the balcony some months ago, they said a hundred thousand people, it was Easter, a hundred thousand people either knelt, bowed down, or fell flat in his presence.

But he has no more power than you or I have. He's man, he's flesh, he's blood. I think that the average person who goes to St. Peter's is overwhelmed with its ostentation, its majesty. But you see, everything that's there is corruptible.

Everything there will vanish away. Papacy will vanish. Lord hasten the day, anyhow. To whom then will ye liken me, liken God? Notice verse 22, it is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth. Well, that answers a problem.

I know a man, a Christian man, who does not believe for a minute that men have walked on the moon. He said it was all made up in Hollywood. It's a fictional thing. This says, talks about the circle of the earth.

Now, do you think that there's a circle and God is sitting somewhere up there in a splendid throne above the circle of the earth? I take this to mean that God is above everything, everybody, every system, political system, financial system, intellectual system.

To use a common phrase, he's been sitting there since eternity watching the parade go past. He's seen the rise of great empires like the Medo-Persian Empire. And then finally, of course, there was the great Roman Empire, which was greater than the Medo-Persian.

The British Empire was the greatest empire that ever was. It stretched further in real estate. It had more people in subjection to it. But here is God in almost, it seems, in splendid isolation. He sitteth upon the circle of the earth.

The inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers. Verse 23, he brings the princes to nothing. He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. To whom then will ye liken me, he said in verse 25. Then he gives us directions.

Lift up your eyes on high and behold what's created these things. And bringeth out their host by number. Obviously, he's speaking about the stars. He bringeth out their host by number. But here's a more remarkable thing.

He calleth them all by name. You know, God could recite the name of every person since Adam right to this day and never make a mistake. Isaac Watts has a great hymn and a stanza in that hymn says, He made the stars, those heavenly flames.

He counts their numbers, calls their names. His wisdom's vast and knows no bound. A deep where all our thoughts are drowned. Okay, he calls them the host by number. He calleth them all by names. I tried to find out how many stars there are.

Nobody's ever counted them. There's an estimate. One encyclopedia says there are 40 sextillions of stars. Now, what's a sextillion? You folk who've been to all these colleges don't know that simple thing.

A sextillion, in the United States, a sextillion is one with 21 zeros after it. In England and Germany, it's a one with 36 zeros behind it. That's for one sextillion and there are 40 sextillions, say the scientists.

Now, go home and work that out before you go to bed. 40 times a one with 36 zeros, multiplied by 40. And God knows them all by names. Well, are you going to tell me that stars that can roll off his tongue, if you like, in an act of creation like that, he knows their names and he doesn't know mine?

Forget it. He even says our names are engraved on the palms of his hands. You ever do that at school to cheat? I did. Examinations were coming, so I wrote the answers on my palm just before I got in class, you know.

Oh, Ravenhill-Watts, so-and-so. Oh, teacher... The answer is, right, you're right. So I was, I'd written it down before I went to school. Or when I got in school. Our names are on the palms of his hands, says the word of God.

If that doesn't thrill you, what in the world will? You know, there's a marvellous division in the prophecy of Isaiah. I'm going to speak on that Sunday morning, by the way. I'm going to speak over at Dave Wilkerson's place, as we call it, or World Challenge, for the next two Sundays.

I'm going to break in between, but... David came in today and said, are you going to preach for me Sunday yet? Will you preach the Sunday after? I said, sure. He said, well, I'll preach the Sunday after that.

The Tuesday-Night Bible Study on Faith

Now, not this Tuesday night, but a week this Tuesday night. You don't know this, so I'll have to tell you. I was going to tell you if Melody didn't get the chance. Sixty Minutes is coming to Garden Valley.

Did you know that? Sixty Minutes is coming to Garden Valley a week next Tuesday night. Coming to that little place where we meet on a Sunday morning. I'm the Sixty Minutes. I'm going to take a Bible study every Tuesday night this winter for 60 minutes.

If that isn't a miracle, what is? You know, it's difficult to study for three days and pack it all into 60 minutes. It will actually be a 65-minute meeting, and the five minutes is to cover the prayer and one verse of a hymn.

That's all we're going to have. We're going right into the Word of God, and I'll tell you what we're going to study for six or seven or eight weeks. The 11th chapter of Hebrews, on faith. We talked about it today.

Melody, do you think your folk would tape it? Well, I asked Dave, he said, oh, he said, they'll do it. They've got wonderful equipment down there. That's called bearing one another's burdens, you see.

So we'll get an audio and a video, and then you can buy them. Because I'm sure you'd like to see me teaching as well as listen to it. I guess we can get a tape of tonight too, at least audio, if you want it.

But I want you to pray about it, because I'm sure that some very troublesome days are coming on the nation. It doesn't matter whether Mondale gets in, I hope he doesn't. Or Reagan. It's not a national affair that's going to be disturbed.

The whole earth is going to be shaken, according to Hebrews, what is it? Remember the chapter? That everything that can be shaken will be shaken, that the kingdom that cannot be shaken may remain. Every system, financial system, is going to be shaken as never before.

Political systems, there'll be individual betrayals, there'll be national betrayals. Nations betraying each other. We're getting very near to the end of this age in which we're living. It's very nice to sing, you know, about the clouds, as we sang tonight.

In that lovely hymn we just finished, what was it now? It is well with my soul, but Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight. The clouds be rolled back as a scroll. That's going to be wonderful, it's going to be terrible.

Oh, I really want the Lord to come. You do? You mean to say you'd like him to see him come tonight with ten thousand in saints, coming in judgment? As it says where? In, well, second chapter of, um...

First, second book of Thessalonians. He's coming in terrible majesty. Terrible majesty. All right, let's look at this a minute. Here. I hate to hear any teaching that diminishes the majesty of God. I find people talking about the limited foreknowledge of God.

God’s Infinite Understanding and Sovereign Majesty

Turn to a psalm, 147. And verse 5, see what it says there. I think that's a psalm, is it? Yeah? 147. Here it is, psalm 147, and verse 5. Great is our Lord, and of great power. His understanding is infinite.

You know, this unveiling of the majesty of God is not just set up to Isaiah, though he has the most greatest revelation of all till you come to the book of Revelation. Great is our Lord, he is of great power, his understanding is infinite.

Turn to 1 Timothy, chapter 6. And verse 15. Or verse 14. That thou keep his commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's check up. Have you kept his commandments today, unrebukable, without spot?

So if he comes tonight, you're ready and say, Lord, I'm glad to see you tonight. Then what? Which in his times he shall show. Who is what? The blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

I hear people constantly referring to Jesus as the man of Galilee, he's not there. He's in the glory. He's a potentate, he's full of majesty. Now one of the hymn writers says, his wisdom's vast and knows no bound, a deep where all our thoughts are drowned.

He's the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And who is he? Isaiah says, he dwelleth in light, unapproachable. Whose robe is the light, whose canopy is space. What I'm trying to get through to your mind, when you come to God, you're not coming to a pauper, you're not coming with somebody who's weary and aged.

He's boundless in his power. The scripture says again, from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Nahum, I guess you don't often read in Nahum, one of the minor prophets. It says there in the first chapter in verse three, the Lord is slow to anger, he is of great power and will not at all acquit the wicked.

The Lord has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. Can you think of anything more majestic? He's making his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are just the dust of his feet.

And the earth is his footstool. Come on, ever read that of any other king, any other being? This vast earth is merely a footstool on which he rests his feet, as it were. Light is his robe, space is his canopy.

What's the other chapter on this? Isaiah 57, let's look at that. Verse 15 says, for thus saith the high and lofty one who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. Almost all the Bible scholars will divide the marvelous 66 chapters of this book into two sections.

The first section is chapter 1 to 39, and the second section is chapter 40 to 66. Now, I didn't check this tonight, but I know it's true, and I don't know which side it goes. In either the first half, there are 17 references to the holiness of God, and in the second half, there are 12 references to the holiness of God, or vice versa, whichever, but they're both there.

17 and 12, making 29 references in this one book alone to the holiness of God. Go back to the book of Exodus. That's easier to find than Nahum, isn't it? So I had to ease your burden, your difficulty.

Chapter 15 of Exodus. Verse 1, Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord. He hath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he hath cast into the sea.

Go down to verse 11. Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? He is like the glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. Come on, what more do you want? In other words, speechless. Isn't it amazing that this person who sits on the circle of the earth, this person who is the high and lofty one, who inhabits eternity, who is an unbeginning being and an unending being, nothing can be added to him, nothing can be taken from him.

He's perfect in everything. That's what holiness is, absolute perfection. In his case, perfection in every area. Perfection in his doings. He baffles us, he mystifies us. He does things that we wouldn't think about doing or dare to do, but he does them in his own right.

Because he's the source of all righteousness, he's the source of all holiness, he's the source of all power, he's the source of all love. He took a man you remember once by the name of Jacob and transformed him.

And called him what? He called him, that's right, what title did he give him? Israel or what? A prince with God. But then in the 41st chapter of this marvellous book of Isaiah, he calls him a worm. Fear not thou worm Jacob.

Isn't that strange? The context is strange because it says he's talking about mountains. Here you have a mountain. Fear not thou worm Jacob, you shall thresh a mountain. Isn't that stupid? Can you think of a worm upsetting the Rockies?

Why doesn't he call him an elephant? Why doesn't he call him by some mysterious name of a beast that we don't know much about? Here is the mountain. Fear not thou worm Jacob. Why a worm? Because a worm can do what an elephant can't do, a tiger can't do, no other creature can do.

It go in at one side of a mountain, go right through and come out at the other side. Then what happens? It says the worm will thresh the mountains small and the wind shall carry them away. What happens when the worms go through?

Everywhere they go they leave a space behind them. They leave a hole right through the mountain. Then the wind gets in. And the wind dries the soil and it becomes powder and the mountain is blown away.

With what? With a worm. You see, someone once asked Hudson Taylor how it was God used him of all men to go and break open inland China. And the dear man, I used to live in a house not far from him. Well, of course he'd been dead a long while, but I mean the house he used to live in.

Away there in England. Every time I passed it I just nodded my head and saluted and felt what a marvelous thing that that man had what in his pocket? He had 50 dollars. So he said, you mean you're going to evangelize China with 50 dollars?

Now come on, you've got something more than 50 dollars haven't you? He said yes. What is it? He said all the promises of God. Hmm? Why did God choose me? He said because he'd been searching for so long to find somebody who was weak enough and at last he found me.

We think he's looking for intellectuals. Strong intellectually. Strong psychological background. Strong physically. Strong emotionally. Strong every way. A hymn writer put that phrase about a worm. He calls a worm his friend.

He calls himself my God. What does the scripture say? The lame what? You don't know that? You better learn it. The lame take the prey. Not the mighty. The lame take the prey. And to those who have no might, he increases strength.

You know I used to think when I was in college, the little time I went, very little time as you can observe. But I used to think when I got out, boy I tell you what, I'll shake the world. People will say Spurgeon's risen from the dead.

But somehow it hasn't worked out like that yet. I've been preaching over 60 years now. But I thought like most guys, if I get more equipment, if I get more knowledge, if I get more self-confidence, if I have a better vocabulary, if I have a greater background, if I can saturate myself in church history and do this and do that.

Boy, the Lord will say one day, you're ready now. Come on, I'll give you your medals before you go. You know, nobody ever graduates in the school of spirituality, this side of eternity. None of us. There's a long way to go.

Moses, the Red Sea, and the Faith That Obeys

Okay, what does it say? In Exodus 15 and verse 11, Who is like unto thee, O Lord? Glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. What's this all about? Well, you go back to the first verse, Then sang Moses, this is the first recorded song in the scripture, Then sang Moses, and the children of Israel, This song unto the Lord, and spake singing, I will sing unto the Lord.

He hath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The psalmist is always trying to keep us to remember the deliverances of God. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his...

Most of us have forgotten, we owe a lot of rent on our blessings. We've taken them for granting. It's time to pay up. What had happened? Oh, nothing too serious. Just that you have a defenseless mob of people,.

Some people say, some historian says, A million people were coming out of Egypt, And they got well on their way, And then they came to some water. Oh, we'll all get drowned. We can't swim, we can't get our children through.

What are we going to do? We'll lose all our possessions. And you see, look at the dust. Oh, a man's coming on horseback. He says, the whole host of Egypt is after you. Hundreds, maybe thousands of men on horseback.

They're going to destroy you. Can you imagine Moses standing? He must have an awful lot of confidence in God, wouldn't he? And he just like you take a comb and part your hair, he parted the sea. How many of you saw the picture of the Ten Commandments?

Do you remember one of them? I saw it once. Do you know that's the first film I ever saw in my life? Came to New York and backslid. And who took me to backslide? My sweet wife. Dave Wilkerson and his wife said, We've got some free tickets.

That's how we got there. And you know, when the waters, Moses parted, and then when the waters came back and rolled over, the trickery, how all the horses were kicking, and there was that great display of power.

Well, these folk actually went through it. It wasn't a film. It's easy to watch films, isn't it? Haven't you often felt in class when something's really struck you? Lord, I wonder if Melody and the crowd here would mind if I left this afternoon.

I'm ready. I mean, I mean, I got such an upsurge today. I got such a vision. I got such strength while the preacher was preaching I'd like to leave right now. Well, why don't you go? Because you'll be flat on your face tomorrow morning.

You'll be seeking the first bus back to this beautiful area that we call Garden Valley. Our times are in God's hands. That's what the psalmist said. My times are in God's hands. And the poet says, My God, I wish them there.

Here they are, the enemy pursuing them. The sea in front of them. And Moses stands there and deliberately. What did he do? He took a rod. What was it called? It was called the rod of Moses. What was he called after that?

The rod of God. But he didn't try and do any magic just because God had used it once. He waited on the Lord every second. We'll take it. I'm going to take it. Hebrews 11, I say, try and get through one character study.

You see, the least thing in the church of God today, God pitches his character. I've watched people like these dear folk here, my dear friend, the Dorsets are going off to India soon. I think it was in India that I watched a man making one of those marvelous, marvelous what do you call them, rugs.

What a marvelous thing it was. I couldn't have done a thing with it. I came up at the back of it and they were tails, black, red, blue, white, long strings. I thought, what a stupid, what's he sticking those things in there for?

Then suddenly realized when I went around the other side, there was a design there that was just majestic. And now all you and I are doing is seeing the loose ends of the threads that God is working in our lives.

We'll see the design when we get over there. I went down in a coal mine once, horrible. If you had to depend on me owning coal, you'd buy it at the drugstore in two ounce packets. I went in a gold mine once and I got nothing.

I went in a submarine once. I went in one of the world's greatest potteries and watched men there working out of shapeless clay. There's nothing more beautiful, I think, than when Jeremiah talks about the potter.

The potter, is it the 16th chapter of Jeremiah? Taking a handful of clay, no character to it, worth nothing. That man would have let me take a handful of clay like that and he'd have taken five cents for it.

But after a few hours when he worked on it and shaped it and manipulated it, he wouldn't have sold it to me for a hundred dollars. You know, that's a good picture of how God finds us. We haven't much shape or character, there's nothing about us.

We're as clay in the hands of a potter. It's a blessing God doesn't let us choose our own way. We don't take the line of least resistance. That's not the way you make character. Do you wonder that this psalmist is talking and Moses talks about the faithfulness of God?

God’s Eternity, Holiness, and the Need for Worship

Let me see if I've got this right. Psalm 90. What verse did I want? I'd forgotten the verse there. Oh, that's it, Psalm 90 verse 2. Before the mountains were brought forth. Isn't that wonderful? There's some gorgeous poetry in the scripture.

I love the scripture that says, the trees of the fields clap their hands. Wouldn't that be wonderful to go down the lane and all the trees start clapping? Or it says, the morning stars sang together. Wouldn't you like to hear them?

All the stars singing a marvelous anthem to the almighty God who made them. All of the trees of the fields clap. Before ever there was a blade of grass. Before ever there was a world. He was there. Listen to what it says.

In this second verse of Psalm 90. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. If that isn't majestic again, what is?

Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness and fearful in praises? I don't think there's a more lofty description of God in the whole sacred word than this verse.

Glorious in holiness. It could be said, glorious in character. Glorious in love. Glorious in peace. In everything he supers... you lose all your vocabulary. I was thinking today of a poem, a poet that Mr. Tozer liked very much, F .W. Faber.

I don't know how much I can remember. I can remember the beginning. My God, how wonderful thou art, thy majesty how bright. How beautiful thy mercy seat in depths of burning light. I'll have to think it up for Sunday morning.

I want to quote it then. How beautiful, how beautiful the sight of thee must be. Thine endless wisdom, boundless power, and awful purity. I can't remember the next stanza. I'll say I'll polish it up for Sunday morning.

But the second two lines. Prostrate before thy throne to lie, and gaze and gaze on me. Now look, sometimes when you're just broken down, what do you do? You curl up in a chair and cry, or lay on the bed and cry.

Huh? Nothing wrong with it? You're exhausted, you throw yourself on the bed. Can you remember the last time, have you ever thrown yourself over the bed in speechless adoration to God? I've quoted this before, I'll quote it many times if I live long enough.

One day Dr. Chaucer said to me, Len, you see this rug? I said, yes sir. He said, I bought it in Kresge's. Kresge's was the original Kmart, you won't know that, but there it is. I think that's right, isn't it?

And he said, I bought it for 69 cents. So I looked at that little bit of rug. The next thing he said was the most amazing thing I think I've ever heard from human lips, almost anyhow. He said, Len, I come in my office at 8 in the morning, call through to my secretary and say, I go home today, I can't dictate letters.

Put a notice on the door, I can't give any interviews. He said, Len, I get down on that rug at 8 o 'clock in the morning, use a good old Bible word on my belly at 8 o 'clock, I'm still there at 9, still there at 10, still there at 11, still there at 12, and sometimes 1 o 'clock, and I haven't said one word of prayer, and I haven't said one word of praise, I've just worshipped.

Isn't that fabulous? Side 2. Nothing to look at, he wasn't a Muslim man. Small, small shoulder, long faced, joked about his long face, but I've talked with some of the greatest men living today, preached in some of the greatest churches in the world.

I've never met a man who had an intimacy with God like Dr. Tozer had. Read his books, you've read them, some of you. He could lay 4, 5 hours and not say a word of prayer, not say a word of praise, just lost in speechless adoration.

Some things I can't stand in modern events. I can't stand people calling God, Dad. The man who calls God, Dad, hasn't had a revelation like Isaiah 6, that Isaiah had of a holy God. That's right. John leaned his head on the bosom of Jesus, was more intimate with Jesus than anybody else, but he says, when I saw him in resurrection's splendor, he said, I fell at his feet as dead.

He didn't say, Dad. Dead. Lord, by the majesty, come on. When you prayed this morning, did you really believe that the God who heard Moses pray, heard you pray? The God who heard Elijah pray, that we taught last week on Mt. Come, that he was listening to your prayers, a worm like you?

One of the most amazing things in the Bible to me, is that God who runs the universe, controls the stars, the stellar system. Before there was a being in the world, he was there, and when everything is finished, he'll be there.

Yet one day, he stopped the course of heaven, and he said, just a minute, look, that's the earth down there, that little ball. You see that tiny little thing, turning there like an ant? It's not an ant, it's a man, by the name of Saul.

The man who tried to wipe out the church, and God Almighty says, there he is. Behold, he prayeth. It wasn't all Israel praying, it wasn't all the disciples praying, it's one man who was breathing out, threatening on a mission of destruction, and madness, and murder.

And God, if you'll pardon the vulgarism, almost could have spit on him, he could have breathed on him, and made him perish like that, and he says, there. He calls one of the great men of the day, and doesn't say, go have an evangelistic crusade in the city, he says, there's a man, there.

And let him know this, don't get him to nod his head, and say he believes in the four laws or something. You just whisper this into his ear. Not that he's going to suffer for me, but what great sufferings, outside of Jesus, I don't think anybody suffered like the apostle Paul did.

He turned the world upside down, he says, I glory in what? Success, prosperity, fame, I've written more epistles than anybody, I'm going to be slated in eternity as one of the greatest men that ever walked the earth, in spiritual power.

I raise the dead, I do everything my master did. No, no, no, no. He says, I glory in those things you and I run away from, that's why I add the character. I glory in tribulation, in necessities, in reproaches.

Do we glory in those things? Or do you get on the phone and say, is Melody there? Or is somebody there to help me? A lot of us have more confidence in our friends than we have in God. Otherwise we won't mess around so much, and want their help and their prayers.

Prayer is valuable, sure it is. But here is the high and lofty one who inhabiteth eternity, who swung all the stars into space, he knows all their names, and he's looking to a man who has a plan in his pocket to wreck the whole church of Jesus Christ.

And he says, go whisper in his ear and tell him what great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And it didn't deter the man at all. He didn't grin and bear it, he says, I glory in tribulation, in necessities, in reproaches.

Why? Because he's in touch with this infinite God, this God whose resources never end, whose wisdom is never puzzled, whose strength is never tested, whose love is greater than, he says, the height and the depth and the length and the breadth of the love of God that passeth knowledge.

You know, when I think of that, I wonder why anybody ever gets discouraged. Surely it's because of this that we don't have that intimacy with God that we should have. And that's what I want us to get.

I hope you'll get a lot while you're at school here, but I do trust among other things that God is not a boldness, not an arrogance. Fearing him in his awful splendor, the earth his footstool, the clouds the dust of his feet, this unbeginning being, this one who launched every form of life as it exists, whatever it is, comes from him.

And then again, as the hymn says, he calls a worm his friend. He calls himself my God. Look, if you've got God for a friend, why do you worry about your other friend? Jesus says you're my friend if what?

If you obey his commandments. If we do whatsoever he commanded us to do. So this God who sits on the circle of the earth, this God whose robe is the light and whose carnapist face and his chariots of wrath are deep thunderclouds form and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

This God who hangs the world on nothing, if he withdraw his power, this world would go crashing away there into endlessness. He upholds it by the word. He only has to speak one word and yet somehow he has a design.

And I look at some of these little bugs in the garden. I don't know why God made them. They're a mess, they're a pest. There's some reason for it. I don't know, but I'll tell you what, they're majestic when you get down to it and examine them.

But how much more does he expect out of this life of mine? As I tried to say last week, when I think of people like Elijah, sure he called on the God of Abraham and of Isaac, but listen, you and I are totally indefensible.

You better get ready for it. There's going to be such a stripping when you get to the judgment seat. You know more about God than Elijah knew? In one sense, in another sense, no. Again, you've got a book.

This isn't a book, it's a library. You can get a library and stick it in your pocket. Sixty-six volumes, read on an airplay. How firm a foundation these saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent work.

What more can he say than to you here? God has nothing else to say to the human race. He said it all. He said it all. There's nothing to add to the book. There's nothing that can be taken out of the book.

Is it Peter that says he's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness? God has no afterthoughts. God doesn't say, I should have done it this way or that way. He doesn't have to correct anything he's done.

It's all perfect. And yet this holy being is one of the kings. He's not accessible to scientists. He's not accessible to the NASA system that's going to shoot rockets in the sky. Unless they come the way of the cross, unless they come the way of contrition, there's no priority for anybody except sinners.