We Shall Be Like Him — Walter Wilson

There's an island down here a little ways. There's a pond there and an island in it. In that pond there are some swans. Those swans have seven bones in their neck, and everything that has a neck has seven bones in it except the blue whale.

It has six for some reason or other. I didn't ever learn why. But everything that has a neck, whether it's a giraffe or a sparrow, has seven bones in the neck. And that has nothing to do with my sermon.

Now you'll also find on that island two little baby birds running around. And you may not know it, but peacocks are not hatched out of peacock's eggs. And those two babies there weren't hatched out of peacock's eggs because peacocks don't lay eggs.

It's the peahen that lays the egg, you see. Most cocks never lay eggs. Who ever heard of a cock laying an egg? So those two babies there were hatched out of the eggs laid by the peahen. That has nothing to do with my sermon either.

The subject of the message this morning is we shall be like him. Turn, please, if you will, to 1 John 3. Now this little book of 1 John was written so that we might know how to be holy and happy. And I'm afraid, beloved, that sometimes we are more afraid of holiness than we are of sinfulness.

And when a speaker starts to speak about holiness, somehow or other there's something that rises up in us that's against it. Haven't you noticed that? And lots of people are far more afraid of the subject of holiness than they are of sinfulness.

And we find in our hearts some way or other, well, this book was written that we might know how to be holy and how to be happy. Also how to walk and how to talk. Those are described in this lovely little book.

And how to be safe and secure. Those are both described in this precious book. And then how to live and how to love. Those are described in this wonderful little book of 1 John. Now we read in this third chapter of 1 John, and whenever you read the word behold, it's God's stop-and-look-and-listen sign.

There's always something very important follows the word behold every time you see it. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God. I'm sorry to say that in our King James Version, child and son are used synonymously, and they are not used synonymously at all in the Greek text.

If any of you have a revised version, you'll see it so. A child of God is one that's related to God. A son of God is one that's like God. Childhood is based on faith in Christ Jesus. Sonship is in obedience to his word.

And so in the prodigal son story, they're both called sons, huios, until you come down to the place where the elder boy won't forgive his brother, and then his name is changed. It isn't in our King James Version, which isn't in all the revisions.

He's no longer a son, he's a child now. He's still related to his father, but he isn't like his father. His father forgives, he won't. So his name is changed from huios to technon, an entirely different word.

And here it's the word technon, we should be called the children of God, because unfortunately all of us don't live like the Lord wants us to live. Every once in a while I see a Christian woman, I thank God I'm not married to her.

Haven't you seen folks like that? They're Christians, all right, they have a good testimony and good faith, but oh, boy! Therefore we should be called the children of God, therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not.

The Promise of Conformity to Christ

Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And may I stop and ask our hearts the question, do we want that?

Would we like to be like the Lord Jesus? We sing it, there's a song we sing sometimes, Oh, to be like him. You've heard some that I expect many times. I wonder if we'd like to be like him. That's what it says.

And have you noticed that predestination is never about salvation? It's about being like him. We are predestinated to be like him, that's what it says. And I suppose we should write in the margin of our Bibles, Lord, do it now.

Don't you think we should? We think of it eventually, of course, after we die, then we're going to be like Christ. But why not write it in the margin of our Bibles right now and say, Lord, do it now? I think it was Horatius Bonar that said, Lord, make me as near like the Lord Jesus as it's possible for a redeemed sinner to be.

I wonder if we would like that. Our precious brethren are ministering to us. Every one of them has spoken to us about that very subject. All the speakers. It's remarkable to me the way the Lord has guided in all these lessons, each one fitting into the other about our being like Christ, living godly lives.

And last night we were hearing that lovely message about domestic felicity, and my wife and I are glad to have that. We've only been married 57 years, and we need to know something about it. So we appreciate the kind counsel our beloved brother gave us.

But let's ask our hearts honestly now, do we want to be like Christ? We are predestinated to be conformed to his image. And here it says, we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. We shall be like him.

God’s Workmanship and the Making of His Jewels

Did you ever stop to think that there's nobody else who looks like you? Aren't you glad? You know, if there were two men who looked just like the woman, we'd know which one she married. The banker would know which one he loaned the money to.

We thank God that we look different. But the real reason is that when the Lord made you and me, we were such a disappointment to him. He never wanted to make another one like us, and he threw the pattern away.

The only person that's ever going to be duplicated is the Lord Jesus. God is going to duplicate him, and we shall be like him. And we shall be conformed to his image because he's worth it. Not a spot, not a wrinkle, not a blemish, not a sin stain.

Absolutely perfect. And that's the reason he's going to make us like him, because we have so many imperfections ourselves. Do you remember that way back yonder David called Solomon over to his side when he was an old man, 70?

The other day I took great consolation as I read about Barzillai, one of David's friends, who says he was a very aged man of fourscore years. I said, thank you, I found out where I am. Because I was 81 when I read it.

David called Solomon to his bedside and said to him, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a willing heart, a ready heart and willing mind, a heart that's ready, a mind that's willing.

Serve him with your head and with your heart. I won't tell you, I wrote down, Lord, do that to me. You know, it's with our heads we do the thinking, with our hearts we do the feeling. Turn please to Malachi, if you can find it, it's the last book in the Old Testament.

Malachi 3 .16. And you'll find the two things there, character and conduct. One refers to the head, the other refers to the heart. Verse 16 of Malachi 3, that's on page 905 for those of you who can't find it.

Notice what it says, Then they that feared the Lord, that's character, spake often one to another, that's conduct. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, that's character, and that thought upon his name, that's conduct.

And they shall be mined, saith the Lord, that is, the mine of ownership and the mine of workmanship. This Bible is mined by ownership, but not by workmanship. These glasses of mine are mined by ownership, but not by workmanship.

We are his by ownership because he bought us with his precious blood. And we are his by workmanship because he's working on us to make out of us what he wants us to be for eternity. We are his workmanship, as we read in Ephesians 2.

And so they shall be mined, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. And by the way, it doesn't say to make the jewels, it's going to make them up. The jewels are made down here, but were put together up there.

I have a pin, a tie pin, and this isn't the one I was going to talk about. I have another one. I have two of them to let you know I'm wealthy. And one of them has an opal in the center, and around it are eight diamonds.

When I was 70 years of age, my eight children came home for a reunion, and each one brought a diamond. And then they all pooled their money to buy an opal to represent the mother in the middle. You see, so I had the family on my neck all the time.

Now, I'll tell you, the jewels were made in different places, but the jeweler in Kansas City made them up into a tie pin for me. That's what our Lord does. He sees us down here and makes us his jewels, and sometimes we go through a lot of grinding, polishing, and trouble to make us what he wants us to be.

And then when we get into his presence over there, he's going to put us together, folks that work together down here so happily and sweetly, like this group. I saw them this morning, the moody men in charge all at one table having a wonderful time together.

Well, they get to be together forever. They work together down here, they get to work together over there, I suppose that's what this means. He makes up the jewels, and those of us that work happily in fellowship with each other get to be together over there, like the unsaved.

Remember the unsaved? The tares are bound in bundles to burn them, remember in the 13th of Matthew? The ungodly that love to be together in their sins, they get bound together and they have to suffer together all through eternity.

That's what it says. And so those of us who live for God down here together and love each other and love to work together and help each other, we get to be together. However, that isn't my subject. I will, when I make up my jewels, I will spare them, verse 17, as a man spares his own son, that's character, that serveth him, that's conduct.

Then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, that's character, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not, that's conduct. So we have to fix up our heads and we have to fix up our hearts.

Cultivating a Mind Set on God’s Thoughts

We send our children to the schoolroom to get their heads fixed up. We send them to the dining room to get their bodies and their hearts fixed up. And you have to have both. And so our Lord wants to make us like Christ, so we think his thoughts after him.

That great astronomer of Magistat, when he discovered the harmonic laws of heaven, kneeled in his observatory and said, O God, I thank thee for enabling me to think thy thoughts after thee. How wonderful it is.

One time there was a preacher in Kansas City, an Irish preacher, oh, such a godly man. It was many years ago when my father-in-law had a two-wheel cart that he went to work in. They were riding down, and in those days the streets were very poor, full of chuckles.

And Mr. Baker said to Mr. Emerson, I'm sorry the streets are like this, I'm giving you an awful rough journey. And the preacher didn't say a word, but about two or three blocks farther on, he said, but the street of that city is pure gold.

See where his mind was? And all the time he was in Kansas City, his whole mind and thoughts were on the things of heaven. That's the way the Lord wants it to be with us. The mind and thinking, God's things, things in his word, are things out in nature.

It's wonderful to see the handiwork of God out in nature. I could keep here all day talking on that because that's my hobby. You know, a hobby is different from a horse. You can get off the horse. Serve him with a willing mind, a ready heart, for we are predestinated to be conformed to his image.

That's what the subjects have been, all the men that have spoken to us here, stirred my heart deeply. The need and the desire we should have is being like Christ. Remember the Lord Jesus said, I must be about my father's business as a 12-year-old boy.

How old does a boy have to be before he starts thinking about the things of God? You know, I was in a church out in Kansas, and it was a state convention of Christian endeavor, and the pastor of one of the big churches was to be out of the city that Sunday, and he asked me if I'd take his pulpit.

I told him I'd be glad to. Then he said in his note to me over the phone, You'll get your program from the organist. Well, that's news to me. I didn't usually get my information from the organist. But when I went over, the dear old buddy came to me, and she looked like the wreck of the Hesperus, and she said, Here's the program.

I was to open with Hymn 211, omitting verse 3, of course, we always do. Then we were to stand up and sing Hymn 29. While we were singing the first verse, the intermediates were to file in from the Sunday school.

I wondered why the front rows were empty. Of course, I often see the front seats empty in the church. One man told me the reason was that the preacher they had before the President used to spit on them when he preached, and they had to get out of his way.

These folks came filing in, a fine group of young people, about 60 of them, teenagers. Then we were to sing the rest of the hymn, and then I was to give them a sermonette. Then I was to pray the Lord's Prayer, and at the end of the Lord's Prayer they were to file out and go and play baseball.

I looked at this and said, Dear Lady, this doesn't fit in with my ideas at all. In the first place, I never learned how to preach a sermonette. I'm not used to that kind of sermon, and I can't do it. In the second place, I don't use the Lord's Prayer usually in a company like this.

In the third place, that song doesn't fit in with my subject. So I crumbled it up and put it in my pocket. I said, I'll run the church myself. So she disappeared in the choir lofts, and I didn't see her anymore.

I could just see the top of her head over the curtain. But I'll tell you something. After we sang that first hymn, that second hymn, I said to the boys and girls, I'm going to speak this morning on the blessings that come to us through the cross of the Lord Jesus.

And I think I can entertain you kiddies, so you won't want to go out and play ball. But if you want to go while I'm preaching, get up and leave, it won't bother me at all. Just get up and leave, it will be all right with me.

Every one of them stayed, and at the close of them, eight of them trusted the Lord Jesus. And then about twenty of them came and said, Come back tonight, we want some more. That's what we've been wanting in this church for a long time.

Their minds hadn't been taught to think God's things. You see, the mind must be fitted up to think God's thoughts. And the Spirit of God loves to do that. That's the reason David said, Serve him with a ready mind, a willing mind that wants his business.

And you can cultivate it. Do you remember one time, I don't know if you remember, I was on WNBI one morning speaking on sick people, how sick people can enjoy their bed. And I said, Now, you're probably in a room where the wallpaper has spots all over it, and grease spots and leaky spots and so on.

Now, you name those spots with a verse of scripture. And if it's a little spot, well, you can quote Jesus well. If it's a big spot, like John 3 .16 and so on. But every one of these spots, you name it with a verse of scripture, and you wish there were more spots.

And you know, I received a poem which I have in my desk at home from a woman down in Illinois who wrote, The Spots Upon the Wall. And it was a lovely thing, but it transformed that dear woman's life, because the mind was changed from worrying about her own condition to the things of God.

Setting the Heart on Things Above

Set your affections on things above, that's the heart. So we love the things of the blessed Lord. Now, all through the gospel of Mark, the Lord Jesus was alone with the people. In every place, no matter who he talked to, he took them away alone.

You'll notice that. And when he was alone with them, they asked him, Why couldn't we cast out the demons? And when they were alone, Jesus said, What was it you fussed about on the road? And when they were alone, they asked him concerning the parable, and so on.

They got alone with him to get their hearts fixed up and their minds. They want to know, and they want to enjoy. Let's ask our hearts, Do we want to be like Christ? We shall be conformed to his image.

And then I was so glad to hear what our brother said yesterday about departing to be with Christ because he said it doesn't say we go to heaven. Now, I go home from my trips, but I never go home and kiss the piano, and hug the dishes, and pet the carpet.

I always go home to this sweetheart of mine over here. And so we go home because the heart wants him, and they'll be satisfied with nothing less than him. And we sing it sometimes, don't we? About how we love him, and love him, and love him.

And so we go home to see him, and the heart's fixed up. But the mind is fixed up because we want to know him. And now, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father. And we get to know him by his word, and by watching him do things, and watching him make things.

Do you remember in Ecclesiastes 7, who can make that straight which God hath made crooked? Now, you try to make a straight peanut, or a straight vine, a grapevine. You can't do it. Who can make that straight which God hath made crooked?

So if there's a crook in your life, something gone wrong, there's something wrong with your body, or with your business, or with something or other, you can't straighten it out, and so you're going to let him fix the mind up until you love it.

A Deformity Transformed into Gospel Ministry

There's a man over east that has a factory that I used to buy from him. He had a birthmark on the side of his face that was very repugnant, very. And he came in my office to sell me, and I hadn't ever seen him before.

And when I saw him come in the office door, that's when I had my tent factory, I didn't want to talk to him. He just looked so repugnant. But he went to the city desk and asked who the purchasing agent was, and I saw Frank pulling him over to me.

And then as he drew nearer to me, I didn't like it. I'd been raised in the hospital, I'd seen everything under the sun there is to see, but that was terrible. When it came to me, he smiled. He said, Dr. Wilson, are you the purchasing agent?

I said, yes, sir. He said, I suppose you're looking at this thing. He said, Dr. Wilson, that's my asset. That just hit me like a blow. That's my asset, he said, and he put his hand up over his face. I said, oh, you should explain that to me.

He said, you know, I run a factory to make money enough to operate a mission. And I have a mission over there for the down and outs and a rescue mission, and I use the money I make off my factory to run those two missions.

And I get up and I say to the fellas, fellas, you see this awful thing on my face? And you don't like it, do you? But God in heaven, that perfect God and that perfect Savior, that lovely Savior, he loved me.

And you know, he loved me so much with this thing on my face that he went all the way to Calvary and died for me. And then he also went back to heaven, and he's sitting up there waiting for me to come and live with him with this thing on me.

And he said, Dr. Wilson, I've seen many a man's eyes filled with tears and many a man's knees bent in worship as I told him that the Lord of heaven loved a man with a thing like this on his face. And how often I thank God I have it, because it makes an entrance to the hearts of men that nothing else would ever cause me to have.

You see, he fixed his heart and his mind on the things of God, and he became a great soul winner. I bought stuff from him for several years, and every time he came in my office, I thanked God for that terrible thing there.

Well, it's so always, if our hearts are right and our minds are right, then we're getting to be more and more like him. And that lovely Lord loves us and turns liabilities into assets. Remember Romans in Revelation 3, verse 4, they shall walk with me in white.

Christianity Centers on the Person of Christ

Have you ever noticed, beloved, that all the gospel verses are about the person of Christ? The sinner is asked to come to the person of Christ, the Christ of Calvary, of course, Christ with the wounded hands and feet and side and back.

They wounded him all over. They wounded his feet because they didn't want him to walk with him. They wounded his head, they didn't want him to think about it. They wounded his back, they didn't want him to bear their burdens.

They nailed his hands to the cross, they didn't want him to work for them. And they pierced his heart, they didn't want his love. They just wanted to get rid of him. And yet that lovely Lord calls us to himself.

That's the difference between religion and Christianity. In what we have and call Christianity, it's wrapped up in that lovely person of Jesus Christ. And you may not know much, but you can love much.

You may not understand a great deal, but you can sure love a great deal. And sing, My Jesus, I love thee. That shows he's got the heart. But we can sing, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.

And don't come from the heart tall, just come out of the head because we memorized it. But he wants the memory and the mind and the heart to be wrapped up in him. So he says at the end, we shall walk with him, with him.

We're not thinking about the golden street. We're thinking about him. By the way, there's only one street in heaven. There's no S on that. There's no streets in heaven, just one. It's in the singular.

Of course, it's a type of the Lord Jesus. Just one golden street. We're not thinking about the street at all. We're thinking about walking with him. What does that do to our hearts? Some of us are pretty close to the end of the journey, although you don't know.

Sometimes the latest from the womb is the first to the tomb. Death doesn't go by seniority. So what does it do to your heart, beloved, when you read, they shall walk with me. I shall depart and be in heaven.

Is that what it says? No. It doesn't say that. I would desire to depart and to be on the golden street. No. I would desire to depart and to be with Christ. That's Christianity. And that's what our Lord wants.

He wants us to cultivate a heart and a mind that sit on him so you're thinking about him, no matter where you are, in the shop or in the office, anywhere, in the store, on the street, on the ocean, on the bus, thinking somehow, connecting things up with him.

You see, God has written two books, the outdoor book of nature and the indoor book of the Bible. And the Lord wants us to connect the two things up. So every time you see leaves, think of what your Bible says about leaves.

If you see a cow, think of what God says about cow or milk. If you see a dog, what does your Bible say about dogs? It does mention cats just once. Of course, dogs are mentioned in the Old and New Testament both, but cats are only mentioned once.

It speaks in the 91st Psalm about the pestilence that walketh in darkness. That's cats. Have you noticed that the Apostle Paul in Galatians says about the God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, not to me, to reveal his Son in me.

Another place he says that Christ may be magnified in my body. So as you look at Paul, you see Christ there somehow. There aren't many of us have that. We ought to covet it, we ought to want that. To reveal his Son in me, and then that Christ may be magnified in my body.

So the body is a magnifying glass to make Christ wonderful. There was a man down southern Illinois that fixed sewing machines, and he did it to get the gospel into houses. He'd go up and knock at the door and say, Do you have a singer here?

Oh, no, we don't have anything about music at all. No, I'm not talking about music, I'm talking about a singer's sewing machine. Oh, yes, we have one. Well, he said, If you'll let me, I'll look it over, and if it needs fixing, you can let me fix it, I'll charge you a small amount.

If you don't, it's all right, no charge. But he did it to get in there and give the gospel. And one day he went to a house, and a dear girl about twelve years of age came to the door, and he said to the girl, Does Jesus live here?

Oh, no, she said, He doesn't live here. He lives in that second house in the next block on the other side of the street, that little white house. He lives there. And my beloved brother Stevenson went down there.

He wanted to see. And he said, An old gentleman came to the door, and he said, Does Jesus live here? Miss Stevenson said, Yes. He said, Come in, I'll introduce you to him. And he said he wasn't inside the door until he saw this was the man that little girl was talking about.

The love of God just shined out of his heart. His words, his actions, his ways of this dear old man just magnified the Lord Jesus. Well, that's what we ought to want. There ought to be a hunger in our hearts.

Hunger and Early Seeking After God

In that 63rd psalm that David wrote when he was hiding in the cave from Saul, with the owls and the bats, he said, My soul thirsteth after God. O God, my God, early will I seek thee. And again he said, As the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

And he had nothing then but trouble. He didn't have his army, he didn't have his crown, he didn't have his gold, he didn't have anything but trouble. His whole heart was hungry for God. You know, beloved, that's what we want in this conference.

Not just a deep desire to know more, and we are learning so many precious things, but there should be in our hearts and souls and lives a heart hunger to be like Christ, and to be able to really sing the song, oh, to be like him.

Eventually, why not now? Isn't there an advertising program like that? Eventually, why not now? Well, someday we're going to be like him. Why not say, Lord, do it now? And even when we overcome those things our precious brother was telling us about last night, those mean, miserable things that hinder, and say, blessed Lord, take charge of my mind, take charge of my heart.

Let's pray.