I’ve been reading “And He Dwelt Among Us” (good read, by the way), a compilation of several of A. W. Tozer’s sermons on John, and was recently struck by his commentary on John 1:3-5 (“All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.”
“[The Bible states], “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (1 Peter 1:2). “In the beginning, God created,” but that was not God’s first activity. God had been busy before that…Some people’s idea of God is quite disturbing to me. Somehow, they have the idea that God is like them only, of course, much better. They take their human attributes and project it up into God…”
And then he arrives at this thought-provoking statement:
“I do not know what it all means to you, but it makes a place like Chicago pretty dirty to me. It makes money look like a pretty sordid thing to me. It makes the praise of man a cheap thing, and it makes me careless of whether anybody like me or not…I am pretty careless about the whole business.
In the light of eternity and the long, long thoughts of God, and the plans of everlastingness and perfection, and the consummation and the coming of Jesus, I wonder what it all matters.
Yet there are Christians in mortal fear of offending some carnal old fellow. They would not draw blood lest somebody would say they are fanatic. There never lived a good man in the entire world but some child of the devil did not say he was a fanatic. And there never was a holy testimony given by the breath of the Holy Spirit that somebody did not say that man was a fanatic. Some people had rather die than be called a fanatic.
In the light of eternity and the long, long reaches, I wonder if it matters very much what somebody thinks about you….Christ has every claim on you and me. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring or even tonight or the next hour. But there walks One among us who walked among the ancient trees. There walks One among us who walked before the world was.”
Nothing is beyond God’s control and grasp. It is He who has established the universe and “everything therein.” With a word He can calm the seas; with another, He can raise it up. In Job 38:4, God says, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”
This brings two thoughts to mind. The first deals with this: in the light of recent tragedy, we often ask, “Why?” I wonder, though….who are we to ask why of the Almighty Creator? The One who created the heavens and the earth? The One who sent His only Son on our behalf? We already know the answer to that “why” – it’s because of this sin-ridden planet on which we dwell. We eagerly await when God will restore everything to how He originally intended it.
Secondly, it is humbling to consider that the sovereignty of our God. What is this life that we should think of it so highly that our desire to do well in it exceeds our desire to glorify God? Are we so foolish as to worry about how people think of us than to consider that their eternity is at stake?
We can only respond as Job replied: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."