The Letter S — Walter Wilson

Tomorrow we're going to try to scare up a platform for down there. I don't like to look down on people at all. And it just seems like so strange. Well, I can holler. The problem is this sound reverberates so that it sounds like it's coming from back there.

But if you can't hear, just hold your hand up and I'll holler louder. I want to be down closer to you and we'll try to find somebody getting down there. When I was a salesman, I liked to be close to the customer.

And this seems to be like an impassable gulf here. You know, great big hype. That's right, brother. Come over where you can hear me. I want to talk with you this morning about the letter S in the Bible.

The Importance of Small Details in Scripture

And the reason is that some of the smallest things in the scripture are unusually important. Even the genders. When the Lord said, Go to the aunt thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, he knew you'd never see a male aunt.

And when he said the spider taketh hold with her hands in his king's palaces, he knew you'd never see a male spider. You see, the Lord, both in handling of the sex, is absolutely careful to give us the right thing.

And so the letter S plays a tremendous importance in the precious word of God, both in its presence and its absence. Now, in the Song of Solomon, chapter 2 and verse 1, we read this, that Christ is the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.

But we're so used to singing the song, He's the Lily of the Valley, that we forget there's an S on it. In fact, you may never have noticed there's an S on it. The letter S is on there because the Lord knew we would have lots of valleys between the cradle and the grave.

Christ as the Lily of the Valleys

And he knew we would need him in each one. And the lily of the valley is, as far as I know, the only lily that grows wherever human beings live and vegetation will grow. It's the universal flower, the lily of the valleys.

And he puts it in the plural because he wants you to realize, and me, that no matter what valley we get into, Christ will be there. And sometimes it's pretty deep valleys, and sometimes they come pretty often.

Some people are born under trouble. Haven't you noticed it? Just have one trouble right after another. And the scripture says man is born under trouble as the sparks fly upward. Well, that's what the Lord wants us to do when you get in trouble, fly upward.

Go up to the Lord, get out of the valley, up to the top, and our lovely Lord will meet the need there. Because he came to be the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, your sorrows and your griefs.

But strangely enough, he said, these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy will remain in you, and that your joy would be full. How can he be the man of sorrows and at the same time give his joy to us?

Well, he loves to do it, and he does do it so that in the midst of tears, if we realize his presence, we can sing. He is the lily of the valleys. Sometimes that valley comes from financial reverses, sometimes from health reverses, sometimes from relatives that move in on you, you know, when you haven't got room for them and they sleep on the floor.

And they come to stay three days and they stay three months. And there are valleys, you know, and there are valleys too caused by neighbors. And all sorts of things get us down. Will you remember that the scripture says that the deep places of the earth are in the hand of the Lord?

The deep places of the earth are in the hand of the Lord. So we can get way down in the jungle. You're close to his lovely hand, and you can realize his precious presence when things go wrong. So we find he's the lily of the valleys, and that letter S just means that you can have him in every circumstance, every condition, every problem, every disappointment, every frustration.

You may go to him and find the peace that passes understanding and the victory over the miserable downcast feeling we have. Remember David said three times, Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou cast down?

He asked it three times, and he gets the same answer all the time. I shall yet praise him. And dear Merton Weiss, that great Methodist preacher in Detroit, preached a sermon on that one day, and it stirred the audience so, and got so many of them out of their doldrums, that they built a monument to him out in the front yard of that church up on Woodward Avenue.

I went by to see it. It's a great big piece of granite, and on there is a boy, a boy about 12, 14 years old, with a fishing pole over his shoulder and a can of worms in the other hand made of bronze. And he's standing on this rock, and underneath it, it says, I shall yet.

So when you get down the dumps, you can say, I shall yet. He's coming out alive. But the Lord may put us through the valley to find out that he's there. Remember David said, Though I walk through the valley, walk through, because sometimes it's a slow business.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil. Now, he doesn't say there won't be evil, and I tell you as a doctor, you're going to have plenty of evil when you get down the valley of the shadow of death.

The devil will see to it that you do. He'll bring up things you've forgotten. He'll bring up things that you didn't know had happened. You forgot all about them. And he brings them up so bitterly. He wants to make you as miserable as he can.

So David said, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil, for I know a way out, no, because thou art with me. Thou art with me. And that's the secret of a Christian dwarf, is the sense of his presence with us.

Trusting God's Presence in Fear and Trouble

Just like with a little child. I saw in front of Doug Rose's home one day a woman walking along with a little child in a blue Eskimo suit. A little thing about you, a woman maybe two years old. There was a little snow on the ground.

And I was watching to see how soon that baby was going to fall. And Mother would put out her hand and the baby would shake her head. No, she didn't want any help at all. She was independent. And then just as they got right in front of the house, Doug's hunting dogs began to fight in the backyard.

And you should have seen that little thing run to the mother right now. Because the mother, you see, the mother offered her help when the baby didn't need it. And then when she felt the need of it, she ran right to her mother and grabbed hold of her.

Well, that's what the Lord wants us to do. Remember, there's an S on the word valley. Then the next one is in Psalm 1914. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation... See, there's no S on that one.

Although it's nearly always quoted with an S on it. And the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Now, there's no S on it. Remember that. Don't put an S on it.

Meditating on God Rather Than Temptation

Because the Lord doesn't want us to think of a multitude of things. He wants us to meditate on Himself. Now, meditation means that you chew the cud on it. You consider it. You think about it. You mull it over in your mind and heart.

And you wonder the meaning of it. Haven't you noticed that in times of temptation, it's meditation that gets us in trouble? We hang pictures in our heads of all sorts of things, you know, that we might do or could do or would do or should do.

And as we meditate on that, that thing becomes more real and more important to us. Well, the Lord wants us to have just one meditation. Don't put an S on it. My meditation of Him shall be sweet. I met some folks just a few days ago.

I saw them out here sitting. I said, I hope they're meditating on the scriptures and on the things of God. I knew they weren't from what they were saying. They weren't meditating on Him at all. Now, as we meditate on things, the Lord opens up the meaning of them to us.

We meditate on something in business. When I had my 10th factory, I used to meditate on how I could get a job from Buffalo Bill. He wouldn't give me any business. He wouldn't even let me quote him. And I wanted to build his equipment.

He had a great big show, and I wanted to build the stuff, but he wouldn't do it. So I just meditated day after day on what can I do to get him to give me his business. And finally, I got on the train, went over to his winter quarters, and hunted up his boss's horse.

I said, Tom, how many horses does Colonel Coe do you have on the show? He said, 326. Well, I said, do they waste any oats? He said, Dr. Wilson, if you could find something to save those oats, the old man will give you a shirt and shoes.

That's his pet peeve. So I meditated on that. I got on the train, went back home, got my head cutter and whopper down, and we put our minds on that thing. And we devised a manger that they couldn't lose any oats out of.

Just couldn't. And I sent it back over and went over to see Buffalo Bill and put the manger up. Had eight of his biggest horses on there, and they didn't lose an oat. They sneezed, but the oats didn't get out of the manger.

And they wanted to fight each other, and they couldn't get to them. I had them hooked down. And when Buffalo Bill saw that, he wrote a little note and said, take this over to Major Lilly. That's Pawnee Bill.

And the note said, give Wilson all our business. See, the result of meditating was to find out the thing that would meet the need and get the business. Now the Lord wants us to do that in the things of God.

We meditate on our weaknesses and what is the remedy for it. We meditate on our church work and what is the best way to do it. My meditation of him and the things concerning him shall be sweet. Just one meditation.

So that though we're washing dishes, we may be meditating on him. Remember I told you how to make dish washing interesting? You just quote a verse. Every time you pick up a dish to wash it, you quote a verse.

And the little ones for a little verse, and the big ones for a big verse. And that's why you wish you had more dishes to wash. It's a wonderful thing, beloved, to have a... Meditate on how the things of God can become more precious, more real to the heart.

Because it's meditation that does it. Do you remember David called Solomon to his bedside when he was at the end of his journey? He said, Solomon, my son... Now listen to this. Know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a willing mind, a ready heart.

Know thou the God of thy father. I want you to think of all my experiences, said David to Solomon, so you'll know the same God I know, and he'll do for you the things he's done for me. I wonder how many of us fathers ever did that.

Call the children around, boys and girls, around your bed or around the chair in the parlor, and say, I want to tell you about my God and my experiences with him, and I want you to know my God like I know him.

Solomon, know thou the God of thy father. I was addressing the fathers in the son's banquet one time, and there were about 200 boys and 200 fathers there. And I said, I want to ask you fathers, how many of you have kneeled with your boy and brought him to your bedside or your chair side and said, I want you to know the God that I know.

I want you to have experiences with him as I have had. I want you to walk with him as I have walked and see his miracles as I have seen them. How many of you fathers have ever done that, and then kneeled with your boy and plead with him to know the God of his father?

I didn't get a hand out of 200 men in a big church. Then I turned to the boys and I said, boys, how many of you in your meditation thinking about God and eternity have gone to your father and said, Dad, I want you to know, I want you to tell me how to know your God.

Tell me what you know about God. Tell me how I can know the God that you know, so he'll do things in my life like he's done them in yours. Boys, how many of you have done that, 200 boys there? Not one hand went up.

That was in Kansas City. That wasn't in Africa. My meditation of him shall be sweet. But the boy didn't know it, and the daddy didn't know it. But I'll tell you something. I saw more tears than I have ever seen in any meeting in my life.

The eyes of the fathers, not the boys, but those dads, to think that they had absolutely neglected their boys and girls, made no effort whatever to win them for the Savior. My meditation of him shall be sweet.

Let the words of my mouth, angry words sometimes, you know, and careless words and foolish words, let the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, in my strength and my redeeming.

The meditation, there's no S on it. I was in a home up in Morencia, Michigan two weeks ago, and I didn't know there was a microphone behind me. But after we'd had a nice visit together, the lady in the house said, Say, how'd you like to hear what you've been talking about?

And bless her life, she turned that thing on and scared me. I was surprised. I didn't know she had a microphone back there, but she had down everything we talked about. Well, now the Lord has a sort of microphone business, and what we say goes up on his records.

Let the words of my mouth. Then there's a very interesting one. This is a Jewish meeting. In John 4, 20. One. Salvation is of the Jews. Notice there's an S on it. Salvation is of the Jews. Why did you put that S on there for?

Salvation Comes Through the Jewish Messiah

The Lord Jesus was a Jew, and I know there are people that tell you he wasn't, but they're mistaken. The Lord Jesus was a Jew. Salvation is of the Jews. Why do you say that? Because, beloved, there must be always two Jews in everybody's conversion.

Everybody agreed to get saved. Get saved through two Jews. The Jew that tells you about him in here might be Paul or John or James or the Lord Jesus himself, and then the Jew that does the saving. I was saved through the apostle Paul, one Jew, and then that Jew's on the throne up there.

Paul told me that wonderful passage in Colossians 2 .13, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, he took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.

I saw for the first time the Savior had blotted the sins out. First time. You see, Paul, the Jew, told me about it, and then I looked up and saw that he did it, and the two Jews made me theirs. I got saved.

Salvation is on the Jews. Now, that shows salvation can't come through Miss Detty. She isn't a Jew. Nor through the Pope. He isn't a Jew. Nor through Joe Smith. He isn't a Jew. Nor Jim Fillmore. He isn't a Jew.

You can't get saved through any of these things. They're not Jews. That which saves us must come from the Jews, not Gentiles, men and women, either. And there are two Jews that want us to be saved, the one that tells us the story and the one who does it.

And it's wonderful, beloved, when we see that he did it. And look up and say, Thank you, Lord Jesus. You did it. I remember a little boy that wanted to be saved, a 12-year-old boy. And I said, Well, come, Jimmy, and we'll kneel down, and you thank the Lord Jesus for everything you can thank him for.

And then when you finish, I'll tell you some more things you can thank him for. And so we kneeled down. He said he was raised in a Christian home. I knew his parents. They were lovely Christians. He said, Jesus, I thank you for dying for me.

I thank you for going to the cross and suffering for me. I thank you that you took my punishment. And then he quit. And I had my head down, of course, praying. It was a bit embarrassing, so I turned around, and he was kneeling up on his knees and smiling at me.

I said, I heard you quit praying for him, Jimmy. He said, I just now found out he really did it. See, all of a sudden, the Spirit of God revealed to him the truth. Otherwise, it was just a mental process.

Then it dawned on his heart and said, Well, this is really true. Well, salvation is of the Jews, and we want to find out whether what we believe came from the Jews or not. About a year after I was saved, the devil was trying to tell me I wasn't.

And so I took a sheet of paper, and I wrote down in one column on the left-hand side of the page what I believed about the Lord Jesus and about hell and about heaven and about the Bible and so on. I wrote that down on that page.

And then I went to the other side of the page, and I hunted up in the Bible what he said about that thing. Do you know I found out over half the stuff I believed wasn't in the Bible at all? I gathered it up from one source and another.

I don't know where I got it. For instance, I thought that we were saved. For years, I thought we were saved by weighing our good deeds against our bad deeds. That wasn't in the Bible, and a lot of other things.

Now, you see, the Lord wants us to get everything we have for eternity from the Jews. It has to come from the Jews, or it isn't of God at all. Salvation is of the Jews. Then we're reading Hebrews 10, 17, and the Holy Spirit said something that's so important to all of us.

He said, Your sins and your iniquities will I remember, period. Is that right? Is there a period there? Your sins and your iniquities will I remember. Is that right? What does it say? Oh, excuse me. I wonder if you put a period there.

You'd be surprised how many of God's dear people grieve over things that happened years ago. They don't. They put a period there. Your sins and your iniquities will I remember. But they forget there are two more, like that 37th Psalm, which says fret.

You know, it says so, fret. And most of God's people do. It says so. So is Scripture when we do it. They put a period after fret. The Lord doesn't want that. Remember, periods are put where God wants them.

Fret, not. But this precious truth is about our sins and iniquities. Now, why does he put an S on that? Because he wants us to know that every single one of them is blotted out by the precious blood. The little ones and the big ones, the things we don't know about.

I was in a garage getting a car fixed one day, and the garage man was talking about Jesus all the time. Every few words, it was Jesus, Jesus Christ, and Jesus, and Jesus Christ. And so I went over and put my arm around him after a while.

He had the word Tom on his overalls. I put my arm around him and I said, Tom, I want to know you better. You know, I don't meet many men that talk about the Savior as much as you do. It's just wonderful the way you talk about the Savior.

Now, I love him too, but I don't say as many things as you do about him. And you must be very close to the Savior, because you just talk about him every few minutes. You're saying something about him.

That's just wonderful. I want you to be my friend. And he turned as red as could be. He said, I didn't notice it. He's so used to cursing, you know, he didn't notice it. There are sins of ignorance, and the precious Lord puts those away.

And sins we deliberately commit, and he puts those away. And sins that we make other people commit, by the way we act, or walk, or talk, or dress, or undress, or something of the kind. And we make other people commit sins.

And so he puts in the poem, puts an S on there, so that we would have peace. Your sins and your iniquities, there's an S on there. Now, remember, iniquities are the things inside that may never come out.

You see, you go by the jewelry store, and you'd like to break the window and grab those watches. But you don't do it because you know it's wrong. Or somebody, you know, you drive your car up, and you're going to back into a place, and just when you start back, somebody from behind comes up and goes in there.

And you'd like to say something, but of course you don't say it. You feel like it. Tell them what you think of them for stealing your parking place. Well, that's iniquity. The thing in the heart that's wrong that we'd like to do, but we don't do it.

That's iniquity. And all of those had to be put on the Lord Jesus. All our iniquities were on him were laid. You remember in Isaiah 53, 6? The Lord hath laid on him all our iniquities. How many? All. How many?

All iniquities. Evil thoughts that come from the time we're born till we die. And our blessed Savior had to suffer and die for those, as well as our transgressions and trespasses and sins. Sins are the things we do.

Iniquities are the things we wish we could do, but we don't do it. Let's remember, he had to put them both away. And very few people ever confess their iniquities. They confess the sins, but not the iniquities.

And yet our Savior had to die for those as well. Then we read in Isaiah 9, 6, The government shall be upon his shoulder. There's no S on it. The government shall be upon his shoulder. And our blessed Lord knows how to run things.

He only needs one shoulder for government. And aren't you guys coming back and take up the government? And we look up and say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly and rule over your enemies and put your feet on the necks of your enemies.

And he's going to do it, and you and I are going to see it. And the government shall be upon his shoulder. That entails law enforcement. It entails the establishment of laws. It means that he runs the government and runs the trains and runs the planes.

And he loves to do it, and he knows how to do it. But when it comes to bringing home the sheep in the 15th of Ruth, he puts that sheep on his shoulders. He takes both of them. Isn't that strange? I'll tell you why, I think.

He puts the legs, you know, around his neck when he carries it on shoulders. You know, you can carry something on one shoulder. I've seen men do it. The hog carriers, you know, they carry the load on one shoulder.

But when the Lord Jesus picks us up, he puts us on both shoulders. Have you noticed in Psalm 100 and Psalm 95, we are the sheep of his pasture, and we are the sheep of his hand. Ms. Gordon, one of our Bible class teachers, was giving away tracts on Summit, and she saw a woman, an aged woman on a porch, and she went up the terrace and handed her a tract.

And this dear old covered woman, she said, what is this? That's about Jesus. Tell you about Jesus. And her face brightened up. She says, I was one of the Lord's hand lambs. Oh, is that so? Yeah, I don't know what that is, Ms. Gordon said.

She said, you know, some of you old white folks, you're the sheep of his pasture. You have plenty. But I ain't got nothing. I just have to come to his hand. Every little while, all day long, I have to come to his hand to get something.

But, you know, he loves the hand lambs the best because they have to be the closest to him. I've had a good lecture. He puts his sheep on his shoulders and draws us close to himself because he wants our fellowship, not just our work and service and ministry, but our fellowship, close to him, near to his voice, near to his heart, near to his life, near to his plans.

We want him to be near to us. And so he takes us up, puts us on his shoulders, and then again we read about the seed in Galatians 3 and 16. Not as to seeds, he says, but as to seed. You notice that? Look at Galatians 3 and 16.

Christ as the Singular Seed of Abraham

The Lord has used the word esther very interestingly. He's talking about the seeds of Abraham. You know, Abraham had seven boys. No, eight boys. And he didn't give any of them the privilege of being his successors, but those who came in the line of the Lord Jesus.

Look at Galatians 3 and 16. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men. Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man dismelleth or addeth thereto. Not to Abraham and his seed, no S on it, were the promises made.

He saith not unto seeds, he doesn't say that, doesn't put an S on it, as of many, but as of one, unto thy seed, which is Christ. So we look back to just one person, that's Isaac, and not to the other six children at all.

Keturah gave him six children, he had two by his wife. And you know, the Lord wants us to remember that there's no competition with the Savior. It isn't Christ and something else, or Christ with somebody else.

And to thy seed, which is Christ, because it is through the Lord Jesus that we have what we have, and not Christ plus something else. There's no S on that. And to thy seed, which is Christ. But there's another very interesting thing, and I'll quote these verses to you because they occur in different places, where the S is put on and the S is left off.

The Word of God as Both Whole and Particular

Now listen, Jeremiah said, Thy words... See, there's an S on it. Thy words were found, and I eat them, and thy word was to me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. He puts an S on it, and then he omits the S.

Thy words were found, words, and I eat them, and thy word was to me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. Now why does he leave the S off of that second one? Well, I'll tell you. You see, you pick up your Bible and you get a lovely passage, and you just feed on it.

I think there's one over here in the 57th of Isaiah that a woman called me up one night about 10 .30 and gave me, and I tell you, it was just wonderful. Verse 11 of the 58th chapter. The Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

Why isn't that something to feed on? Isn't that something to eat? I just read that when she gave me that over the phone. I got my Bible and read it and read it and read it, and I don't know how many times I've feasted on that verse.

Let me read it to you again. The Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

So the Lord makes us into a most wonderful blessing to others, and he puts an F on that precious, precious word. Thy words were found. Now, a lot of times you thank God for the whole book. I bought a Bible once for a colored man to give his wife on her birthday.

The next day I said, how did she like it? He said, during the night I tied it with a ribbon around her wrist, and I put a ribbon around the Bible and tied the ribbon around her wrist, and when she woke and tried to lift the hand up to brush the hair out of her eyes, she couldn't, it was so heavy.

And it woke her up suddenly, and she looked at that, oh, she said, you sweet Bible. And she kissed it and kissed it, and she held it to her heart, and then she kissed it again, she held it to her heart, oh, and then she looked up and said, oh, God, I'm glad you gave me your Bible.

I love it. Well, that's singular. The whole book, you see, was precious to her. Then you find a verse, and you take a bite out of that, and that's precious to you, and those are the words. The words are the passages you get and enjoy, but the whole book is the whole word.

Thy words were found, and I did eat them, but thy word, the whole business, is the joy and rejoicing of my heart. You can't take the whole business. We got a loaf of bread. One time when I was preaching in Detroit, I had a baker bake me a loaf of bread out of a whole barrel of flour.

The thing weighed 190 pounds, and it was 11 feet long, this loaf of bread. Now, nobody could eat all that. I was glad I had the whole business, but I could only take a bite, and a bite here. Like a horse in the pasture, you know, he takes a bite here and a bite there.

He could stand in one spot and eat all day long, but he doesn't do that. He just bites all over the place. Why don't we take our Bible, and we get a bite out of the Psalms, and a bite of Isaiah, and a bite out of Revelation.

There are places we get bites, but we're glad we have the whole business. We're glad we have the whole Bible, even the first chapter of 1 Chronicles. How many of you love the first chapter of 1 Chronicles?

Let's see. Shame on you. That's part of God's word, and I'll tell you what you do. If you start looking up the meaning of the names in that first chapter, you will be in it for six months because it will be so sweet to you.

The meaning of those names is just a feast, and you go through it to see how many are in the line of Christ. Take a pencil and mark under the... make a railroad through there of all the people in that chapter that are in the line of Christ's genealogy.

I tell you, you won't want to go to bed. Just follow the richest, sweetest messengers that first chapter of 1 Chronicles. Well, we read, thy words were found, thy deepest. Then again, thy words were found night and evening.

That's one kind of attitude. But Job said, I esteem thy word more than my necessary food. That's Job 23 .12. I esteem thy word... see there's an S on it... more than my necessary food. I wonder how many of us do.

Better than breakfast or dinner or supper. We just must get something out of the word of God for our hearts and souls. More than my necessary food. That's what he said. And God wrote it down in his Bible.

But that was so important, so valuable, that he esteemed it more than his necessary food. Then another place we read, here in the 12th of John, verse 48. He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words, words, hath one that judges him.

The word that I have spoken shall judge him in the last day. Notice how he changed it. He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words, that's plural, the word that I have spoken shall judge him in the last day.

The word. That is, God judges by the whole book. Now, I've never seen anybody who rejected the whole Bible. There was one fellow that said there wasn't anything true in it, not a passage that was true, and nothing I could prove was true.

And I said, well, if I find a passage I think is true, will you let me prove it? He said, sure. So I quoted him the last verse of Proverbs 30, which says, Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood.

I said, I can prove it to you if you wish to have me do so. But, of course, he didn't want that proof. Now, men reject part of the Scripture. I remember that same fellow. I said, in Ecclesiastes 1 .7, we read, All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is never full.

From the place where those waters came, thither they return again. I said, is that true? Sure. He said, any fool knows that's true. Then I said, you admit you're a fool, and I'm glad you do, because you're now where you can learn something.

Because there's evaporation, precipitation, gravitation, all in that one verse. And, of course, everybody knows it's true. Then there's that wonderful verse in Jeremiah 17, The partridge sits on eggs and hatcheth them not.