The Voice of Eternal Wisdom — A.W. Tozer

This morning, is this Friday? This morning and tomorrow morning, Saturday morning, I want to give two messages on the same theme. Be called the voice of eternal wisdom. I preached a series of about, I guess, 14 or 15 or more in Chicago, and if I can live to be 108, I want to write a book by that name, The Voice of Eternal Wisdom.

But up to now, it isn't even remotely within sight of writing it, but I'd like to. So, I want this morning and tomorrow morning to give two talks on the voice of eternal wisdom, and I'll read quite a little.

Wisdom’s Voice in Proverbs 8

In Proverbs 8, Doth not wisdom cry and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places by the way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in, at the doors.

Unto you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of men. O ye simple, understand wisdom, and ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. Here, for I will speak of excellent things. All the words of my mouth are in righteousness.

Verse 12, I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogancy and the evil way, and the forward mouth do I hate. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom I am understanding.

I have strength. By me, kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me, princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me.

My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold. My revenue better than choice silver. The Lord possessed me. Now notice, we're changing genders here from the woman to the man. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways before his works of old.

I was set up from everlasting from the beginning, wherever the earth was. When there was no depth, I was brought forth. When there was no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth.

Then was I by him as one brought up with him, that is God. And I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth. And my delight was with the sons of men.

Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children, for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, and watcheth daily at my gates.

For whoso findeth me, findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord. Now there's lots more, but I won't read any more out of Proverbs now. But only begin by saying that the wisdom books of the Old Testament, plus some of the uninspired writings based upon those wisdom books, and going out of them, display before us what they call eternal wisdom.

The Personification of Eternal Wisdom

Now sometimes this eternal wisdom is an abstract quality, as I've read this morning, very pure, very holy, and unspeakably precious. Sometimes it is given the attributes of God himself. Sometimes this eternal wisdom is seen as a beautiful chaste queen, walking in great moral beauty.

She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless clime and starry skies, and all that's best of darker light meet in her aspect and her eyes. That might describe this queen as princess, who is described in the Old Testament, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, some of the prophets, and then in the writings of the old rabbis and mystics of the Old Testament based upon the inspired writings.

I want to give you a sample in a minute. And this beautiful being calls always, and she calls the sons of men away from what she calls the strange woman, that flatters with her lips, with pretty face and sparkling eyes and sweet with perfumes, beautified with jewels, but a wretched, cramped heart, and she calls the sons of men away from this vile woman to herself.

Then when you get there, she changes on you and becomes a he, and comes eternal, goes out, and we find that she was with God before the world was, and that she was equal with God. This strange, mystical, beautiful view of eternal wisdom.

Christ as the Wisdom of God

Now when we come to the New Testament, we find it again. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

Colossians, that's 1 Corinthians. Colossians, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love, unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, through the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Now here, love, understanding, mystery, wisdom, and knowledge, and all this summed up in Christ. So we find in the New Testament the incarnation of this spirit, this eternal spirit of wisdom of the Old Testament.

And I said I would give you a little sample of what some of the old rabbis and the old devotional mystical fathers of the Old Testament times thought about this. They didn't claim their book was inspired, and it's never been accepted as inspired, except by the Roman Catholics, and we throw that out.

But here is what the Old Testament apocryphal book called the Wisdom of Solomon, this is a little selection, talks about wisdom. It says, Wisdom is the worker of all things, for in her is an understanding spirit, holy, subtle, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good, quick, cannot be hindered, ready to do good, kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things.

You see, they're giving to this spirit of wisdom the attributes of the deity, going through all understanding, pure, most subtle, for wisdom is more moving than any motion. She passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness, for she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty.

Therefore can no defiled thing fall into her, for she is the brightness of the everlasting light. You see, brethren, we underestimate the spirituality of some of the Old Testament saints. Here were Old Testament saints writing about Jesus Christ before he was born.

She's the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God and the image of his goodness. The book of Hebrews hardly said more. And being but one, she can do all things, remaining in herself, she maketh all things new.

Exactly what is said about God in the book of Revelation. And in all ages, entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God and prophets, for she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars, and being compared with the light she is found before it.

For after this cometh night, but vice shall not prevail against wisdom. Now, that is a little sample of what the Old Testament saints believed. And they based their belief and drew it out of the divinely inspired scriptures.

Original Sin as Humanity’s Supreme Folly

Now, we hear the voice of wisdom calling, and I ask the question, why is wisdom so often associated with salvation in the Bible? As, for instance, to the only wise God our Savior. Well, the reason is this, that the most stupendous act of moral folly ever committed in a moral universe was man's original sin.

We never ought to get away from this. This ought to be as basic to our theology as the blood is to our bodies. It is foundational, it is the steel structure in our theological temple. We must never doubt that man has fallen.

And this act of falling, this original sin, I repeat, was the most colossal blunder, moral blunder ever committed, the most stupendous act of folly ever committed in a moral universe. And when man fell, he exhibited an act.

He made a choice, the most witless, the most blind, the most morally stupid and senseless possible for the human mind to conceive or human language express. Do you notice what we did? We were created and put in a garden.

And we were created perfect and given a perfect environment and had God to walk with us among the trees of that garden. And yet by one blind, reckless, half insane, morally corrupt act of our will, we wanted to be free and so we became lifelong slaves.

We were free to start with. But we wanted to be freer than free and so we got lifelong slavery to the world, the flesh, and the devil. And then people want me to believe that the world is wise. The world is populated with moral fools, you and me included, until we're born again, as I shall explain later.

And we wanted to throw off God's easy yoke and we did. But we put on instead the iron yoke of sin and we've been wearing it ever since. We turned away from the only friend we had and we put our trust in the only enemy we had.

And anybody will do that, it's a fool, there's no question about it, and we did it. God was Adam's friend and the devil was his enemy. And Adam withdrew his confidence from his friend and put his trust in his enemy.

And then he wants me to believe in his wisdom. We wanted to see more and so we became totally blind. And any man, in order to see more, performs an act that makes him completely blind so he can't see anything is a fool to start with.

We gave up peace and we took outward trouble and inward distress. We gave up eternity and we took time. We gave up walking with God and now we sleep with worms. We gave up joy and took tears. We gave up life and took death.

Now that's our folly, that's what the Bible means when it talks about fools. That's us, that's what we did, that's what sin is, that's the choice sin makes. And in order to be saved, in order for redemption to be efficacious, there had to be an act performed equal to or mightier than the act of folly that wrought our ruin.

Redemption Through Christ, Wisdom Incarnate

So Christ is wisdom incarnated because the original sin of man was the summation of all folly. To save us from that, God had to send to the world somebody who could be the summation of all wisdom. That's just exactly what he did.

He sent us Jesus Christ and he has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Ephesians 3, that now under the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.

Man committed all the foolish acts and God summed it all up in one mighty world-shaking act of wisdom and sent Jesus Christ to die. So Jesus Christ has made unto us wisdom. The wisdom we lost, he's made that unto us.

And the righteousness we lost, he's made that unto us. And the sanctification we lost, he's made that unto us. And the redemption we needed, he's made that unto us. So Jesus Christ, we see them now in the Old Testament and the New, walking in beauty.

We see this beautiful woman of the Proverbs, this queen among all the daughters of Eve. Before the world was, she was. And she is beauty personified. She has all riches and all goodness. And her beauty is moral beauty.

And she calls the sons of men. And she says, I am at the right hand of God. And I believe we see the Holy Ghost there. And she calls us back to the wisdom of the just. Now, there is a wisdom, my brethren, apart from which nobody can be saved.

It is what the Bible calls the wisdom of the just. In Luke 117, it's said of John the Baptist, He shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah and he shall call the disobedience to the wisdom of the just.

And this wisdom is found in repentance. It is restored moral innocency. To have repented of our folly is to become wise. And to repent of being a fool is to become a wise man. So I ask you to notice here, see her standing, this voice, this eternal wisdom, this spirit of all excellence, wearing on her head the crown of eternity, stretching out her hands and calling us back to what?

Costly Grace at the Cross

Back to him because I want you to see him there, the fountain of all wisdom eternal, stretched on a cross, to undo the act of folly wrought by the original sin of man. Stretched on a cross, I say, not to offer cheap grace to fools, not to offer cheap grace to the headstrong and the rebellious and the self-confident and the fool, but to offer costly grace to the penitent.

Grace is free, but it's not cheap. And fundamentalism has mistaken the word free and has made it synonymous for cheap. So we have cheap grace now, but there's no cheap grace in the universe. Grace is free to us, but it costs the eternal wisdom incarnated six hours of bitter, wrenching agony on a cross.

It cost him his blood and his life. So he offers to us costly grace. Grace to the penitent, the penitent fool who has become wise through his tears and who has heard the voice of eternal wisdom and has turned from folly to righteousness and to the wisdom of the just.

Human Depravity and the Necessity of the Cross

Now God sees the human race has fallen. You see, here's the problem with liberalism. Liberalism begins with the assumption that man's all right except for a few moral pimples which he can get taken care of.

It's only a skin disease. That's liberalism. That's why I'm not a liberal. And if you hear anybody saying because of anything I say that I'm liberal, you tell him that he's either ignorant or a liar, both.

Because there's no liberalism in my heart because to be a liberal, you've got to believe in the essential goodness of man. And I believe in the essential badness of man. A fellow went into a neighborhood one time.

He was a universalist, you know, teach universal salvation. And he liked to start a universalist church there, but he couldn't start on a shoestring. He wanted at least one member. So he canvassed the neighborhood to see if there were any universalists around.

So he knocked on one door and a fellow came to the door, a sour-looking fellow. And he said, I'm looking to see if there are any universalists in the neighborhood. I thought we might start a universalist church.

Well, he said, you found one. I'm a universalist. He said, you are? Fine. And he said, but let, I think I ought to explain. He said, I'm a different kind of a universalist from you. He said, you're a believer that all men will be saved.

Now he said, I used to believe that. But he said, I've been kicked around, deceived, sold down the river, betrayed, lied to, cheated, skinned, and betrayed by my friends so long that I've come to believe in universal damnation.

He said, I don't believe in universal salvation anymore, but experience has taught me to be a universalist of another kind. I believe all men are damned. He slammed the door. Well, he was more theologically correct than the first fellow was, all right.

He didn't make any allowance for the cross, and you and I make allowance for the cross. But apart from the cross, I believe in the universal damnation of mankind. Not only that, I believe man deserves it.

And I don't believe anybody ought to say, well, it isn't fair for God to send men to hell. It is the only fair thing for God to do and be a holy God. But it is grace that saves anybody. So this voice of wisdom is calling us back to salvation, calling us.

Always there's a voice calling. The voice of eternal wisdom, it calls everywhere. Turn ye at my reproof, I will pour out my spirit upon you. Unto you all men do I call, and my voice is to the sons of men.

And I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me. You see, there's an affinity between the returning man and wisdom. Now, Christ is that ancient, most excellent wisdom, I say again, incarnated in our nature.

So to Jesus Christ is all the wisdom there is. And when he went to the cross, he made an atonement that was so perfect that it was impossible to improve on it. Let nobody attempt to improve on the cross.

Let nobody add anything to the cross, or set any candle before the light of the world. Nor try to paint the lily of the valley in any more godly colors. Or try to bring to salvation the help of modern thought.

Let nobody introduce psychiatry or psychology into the church of Christ. We don't need either one. Psychology and psychiatry, they are Adam's attempt to do what you can do in five minutes if you have faith in God through the cross of Christ.

We don't need any help from any of that direction. We need only Jesus Christ. Brethren, the farther out we go from the center of eternal wisdom, incarnated, the dumber we get. Until we get so dumb we become liberals after a while.

And get degrees out on the fringe there where we have no sense at all. And we walk around believing in the essential goodness of man. I believe in the essential badness of man. And I believe that until he turns to righteousness and to the wisdom of the just, he will go through eternity a moral fool.

Having done by one awful act a deed the most ridiculously foolish that it amounts to moral insanity. That's what I think of the human race. Myself included and all of my family. And my ancestors and my kids and everybody else apart from the blood of the lamb and the power of the Holy Ghost.

And brother, against that dark background, the cross of Jesus Christ shines like the morning star. But as soon as you begin to talk about the essential goodness of man, the cross doesn't mean anything at all.

You can put it up on the steeple, that's where it belongs, that kind of a cross belongs anyhow. Now, I say that the call of the eternal wisdom is to call men from foolishness. Every time you waste a dollar that might have gone into the missionary collection, you're performing a foolish act.

Every time you get mad, you're acting like a donkey. Every time you're jealous, you're performing the act of a fool. And every time we sin, we act like moral half-wits. And there's only one place for wisdom, to find wisdom, and that's where wisdom is.

Back at the foot of the cross. Back beside him who is the source of all wisdom. The glorious summation and essence of all the wisdom there is. And when I turn my back on him, I'm a fool to start with.

And when I turn my face toward him, I'm beginning to learn wisdom. For the wise man is the good man, and the fool is the bad man. And the further he gets from God, the more foolish he is, and the closer he comes to God, the wiser he is.

So the wisest man in the world today is Nert Bernard Baruch or some other old sage. The wisest man is the one who knows the Lord Jesus Christ the best. He's the wisest one. He can soak up more wisdom in a few minutes in prayer with your open Bible, looking into the beautiful face of Jesus.

Then he can learn in all the seminaries in the world, plus all the advanced universities of learning in the world. But you know moral wisdom can't save a fool. Now listen, if a man says, I want to be saved, but I don't want to be good, that's fool.

He says, I want to escape judgment, but I don't want to be honest. I want to be free to cheat on my income tax. He's a foolish man. He says, I want to be God's child, but I want to be free to lie to my wife sometimes and be a bit dishonest for the sake of my business.

He's a fool. The man says, I want to go to heaven, but I don't want to live a good life on earth. He's a fool. But that's not the language of a wise man. That's the language of the man who chose worms instead of glory.

That's the language of the man who chose to be free and got an iron yoke riveted on his neck. That's the language of the man who wanted to know something and lost all the sense he had. That's the language of the man who wanted to see what wasn't to be seen and went clear blind.

Religious Rackets and the Corruption of Ministry

Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? Now, that's what Paul said to a fool who wanted power to give the Holy Ghost to whoever he would.

He wanted to make a racket out of it. We've got a lot of fellows now making rackets out of religion. All the beautiful things God's given us have been copyrighted or patented by somebody and are used now for rackets.

There was a day when prophecy was a beautiful thing, and they told us of the coming of Jesus, which I still believe in, incidentally, and the millennium and all that. Then they copyrighted that and got charts and began to make a wad of dough out of it, and God confused our faces so everybody's afraid to preach prophecy anymore.

Then healing, that beautiful, beautiful thing that God will come and touch a human body and restore its health, that became a racket. They made a racket out of that. There are men living today who are making a racket out of healing.

They've got so much money they've got farms down in Texas where they raise bloodied cattle while they run around over the country making money on poor blind people and people with cancer. One of these days God's going to confuse our faces on that.

There's nothing like a good depression to kill a lot of these religious rackets. When they don't pay, they don't earn them. When the sap isn't flowing, there isn't any use to bore a hole in the tree. When the fish aren't running, there isn't any use to throw in the net.

When there's no money, we might as well just pull the tent down and wait for times to get better. One of these days God will confuse the faces of these racketeers. Now I'm going to go further. This is a terrible sermon, but I'm going to go further.

I'm going to tell you that missions have now become a racket also. And there are men who never thought of their loss before, but now that we've got lots of money and airplanes, they've suddenly become missionary-minded.

And they're floating all around over the country on Viscounts and super constellations and all over the world at other people's expense, coming back breathless and telling the public and then counting the proceeds and cutting the coupons.

They're making a racket out of missions. But there isn't any good thing that a wicked man won't turn into a racket if you don't watch him. I said sometimes I'd like to have a pope for one year, and then I'd want to retire him, take him out somewhere and put him in the pasture field and go back to the way we were.

But I'd like to have some authority someplace just long enough to kill some of these things that are going on in the name of the Lord. Oh, thou full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil and enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

My brethren, the ministry is the most holy office in all the wide world. And to serve the Lord God here in this world is one of the highest honors in all the wide world. I heard a Nazarene preacher years ago, a happy shouting Nazarene preacher.

He said, I wouldn't be president of the United States for all the world. He said, I'd have to take a ladder to climb up to the office I got now. He said, I magnify my ministry. He'd rather be a preacher than be president, and so would I.

The trouble with the presidency is it's impermanent. But you can serve the Lord and never cease to serve him while the stars burn. And after they've stopped burning, you can burn on in the kingdom of God.

Brethren, we ought to take everything very, very sacred and hold everything very, very sacred. This beautiful wisdom, this eternal essence of all, the shining wisdom of God that speaks and calls and sounds to the world, calling men from folly to holiness.

You can't betray that wisdom. When we do, we make fools of ourselves. When we refuse to hear that voice, we grieve God. And we must stop. We must begin rather to listen, always to listen to that voice.

Repentance, Holiness, and Christian Identity

Repentance unto wisdom, unto righteousness. I heard this over the air the other day. I heard a man preaching over Chicago Station. And he said, some of you young people, he's preaching to young people.

He said, some of you young people think if you become a Christian, you have to be a square. He said, I want to tell you that's all wrong. You don't have to change except Christ, he said, and everything will be all right.

Well, they ought to lead that fellow out somewhere and pump some something into his head. At the present, there isn't anything there. They ought to pump gas or something in. Because he's never read the Bible.

That's the voice of folly speaking. I have to apologize before these rock and roll halfwits because I am not a square? Do I have to stand up before a world that wallows in its ignorance and apologize for serving God?

Do I have to apologize because I've chosen to walk with them that walk with God? Do I have to apologize because I've chosen heaven above earth? Because I've chosen eternity over time? I've chosen holiness over sin?

Don't I have to apologize and say, no, you can be a Christian and still be a jive cat. You can't be anything of the sort. And we are betraying our youth when we tell them that you can. There's no use to lie to our young people.

Elvis Pelvis, he can get converted just the same as this jackass did. But until he's converted, I'm no disciple of his. God help our young people if they choose donkeys for their models. Instead of choosing saints for their models.

Look at the saints there have been. Dear old Francis of Assisi, preaching to the birds and hugging the trees and thanking God for the rain. Why don't you read about him and try to be like him and forget that sideburn monstrosity.

So repentance unto wisdom unto righteousness. There's the way. Repentance from being foolishly morally foolish to wisdom to righteousness. Humble and meek and self-effacing. It is to hate evil and love all righteousness.

It is to come be modest and pure and temperate. And to walk with God. Now I want to close by reading a little testimony. It's only just a few lines, so don't brace yourself and say I wish you'd quit. I want to read you something very wonderful and very lovely.

Heinrich Suso’s Testimony of Seeking Wisdom

Possibly most of you have never seen it. Henry Sousa. Just for fun, how many has ever read anything by Henry Sousa? Come on, stick your hands up. Not anybody here? I recommend Henry Sousa. Heinrich if you are German.

Heinrich Sousa. Oh, what a man. What a brother in Christ he is. Or was. He said this, he was praying one day and he wrote it down and I got a hold of it. He said, beloved gentle Lord, since the days of my childhood, my heart has sought for something with an ardent thirst.

As I've described you, from the days of my childhood, my heart has sought for something with an ardent thirst. Lord, what it is, I cannot yet fully understand. But I have pursued it, Lord, thou knowest many a year eagerly.

And I do not know rightly what it is. And yet it is something that draws my soul toward itself. Without which I never can find true peace. I never pray for people to have peace. All this boney about peace of mind is from the devil.

The Lord never promised anybody peace of mind first. He promised them trouble and misery until they found wisdom in Christ Jesus. Then he promised them peace. But to promise people peace of mind is to betray them.

It's like putting a cork plaster on a cancer and saying, you'll be all right now, bud. Well, he said, he went on to pray and he said, Lord, in the first days of my youth, I tried to find it in creatures.

As I saw others doing. But the more I sought, the less I found it. And the nearer I went to it, the further it got away from me. That sounds almost funny, but I know what he's talking about. He says, for every image that appeared to me, the inner voice said to me, no, this is not what thou seekest.

Some of you dear people, you thought you got a bigger car, you'd be all right. But the voice of wisdom said, as soon as you got back to the wheel, the voice of wisdom said, no, this isn't it. Your heart still hurts and you're still hungry and you're still thirsty and you're still longing after something.

And the Holy Ghost said, no, son, this isn't it. And you, young lady, you thought if you could get that big square-shouldered fella and become his missus, that that would be the end of all glory for you.

You hadn't been married two weeks until your heart began to hurt again. And you said, God, this isn't it. I love him and he's all I thought he was, but that wasn't it. You businessmen think if your business goes on a little and you make a few more profits, that'll be it.

And as soon as you get your profits in the bank, on your way home, something inside of your heart will say, no, that isn't it. That's not what thou seekest. And you farmers think that if your hogs get a little heavier and your steers get a little thicker through and your corn gets a little more to the acreage, that's what you want.

No, you can't feed your soul on beef or corn. Your soul will say, no, that's not what thou seekest. He says, I've always had this revulsion from things. Lord, my heart now yearns for it and would gladly possess it and often experiences what it is not, but what it is I can experience.

Then he went on a while. He said, then he heard the voice saying, it is I. Eternal wisdom speaking. It is I. It was Jesus, you see, come to earth. Says, I have chosen thee for myself before all eternity.

I found this in every creature, something that repelled thee. And that is the true sign of my elect, he says, that I wish to have them all for myself. So it turned out to be Jesus Christ after all that he wanted.

Eternal wisdom was what he wanted. And he wanted nothing else and he needed nothing else. I want to tell you, that's all you need. Pentecostal friends used to sing a song, Jesus Christ. I never was Pentecostal, but I know they sang this song.

Jesus Christ is made to me, all I need, all I need. He alone is all my plea, he is all I need. Wisdom, righteousness and power, holiness forevermore. My redemption full and sure, he is all I need. Can you say amen?

Amen.