The One Great Reality | Page 6

does your heart answer, Yes: "Even from everlasting to everlasting
Thou art God." [Footnote 3: Ps. xc. 2.]

ADDRESS II
GOD OUR FATHER
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE--Matthew vii 24-34.
In the chapter we have just read there is a great deal about our daily
home life, and the word "Father" is mentioned twelve times, so it
shows that God knows all about the everyday work. It is a grand thing
when we find this out.
A poor woman in China was converted, and very soon the lady
missionary who visited her noticed that now her house was very clean
and tidy, and told her how glad she was to see it.
The woman smiled, and said in her own simple way, "You see my
Father God and the Lord Jesus are constantly coming in and out, so I

like to keep it nice." She realised the Presence of God.
"The eyes of the Lord are in every place." [Footnote: Prov. xv. 3.] If we
do not find God everywhere we practically end by finding Him
nowhere.
A busy Christian mother told me that she begins each day and lives all
the day long saying in her heart, "In Thy Presence and by Thy Power."
We must not only say it, but act upon it as a reality, and then it will be
our daily experience to be in touch with God.
There was one word which was very precious to Christ and which was
often on His lips, and that was "Father." You remember how He stood
one day at the grave of His friend Lazarus. All the mourners were
standing round Him. Lazarus had been dead four days. It seemed
utterly impossible that he could be restored to life again. No one
expected it.
What did Jesus do? "Jesus lifted up His eyes and said 'Father.'"
[Footnote: St. John xi. 41.] Those eyes were still wet with tears, for a
few verses before we read "Jesus wept." Then He lifted up His eyes and
said "_Father_": that was enough. There is everything in that word. It
just meant, "I have told Father all about it." He knows, He loves, He
cares, and all things are possible with Him. There is no limit to His
power and His love.
Then the command was given to those standing near--"Take ye away
the stone." Was Christ going into the cave? No, the dead man was to
come out. So we have first the wondrous name "Father," and then the
loud cry, "Lazarus, come forth," and he that was dead came out of the
cold grave', out of the region of death into the land of the living.
All through His life on earth our Lord always speaks to God as Father.
One verse especially brings out the perfect intimacy, the perfect
confidence, the perfect love between the Lord Jesus and the Father.
Jesus says, "All things are delivered unto Me of My Father, and no man
knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father
save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him."
[Footnote: St. Matt. xi 27.] The last words of this verse are very
precious, for they show that not only has the Son perfect knowledge of
the Father, but He reveals or makes known the Father so that you and I
may know Him as our Father.
You remember Philip prayed, "Lord, show us the Father, that is what

we want," [Footnote: St. John xiv. 8.] and Christ answered, "He who
has seen Me has seen the Father." Yes, "He is the image of the invisible
God." God said to Moses, "Thou canst not see My Face and live for
there shall no man see me and live," [Footnote: Exod. xxxiii. 20.] and
for hundreds of years no one saw God. Then came the wondrous gift
and the wondrous revelation. God gave His only Begotten Son, and in
Him we see the Father. Praise the Lord! the glorious light has come to
us in our darkness. For "God, who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God _in the face of Jesus Christ._" [Footnote: Cor. iv. 6.]
The Apostle John says, "We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
"No man hath seen God at any time," [Footnote: St. John i. 18.] and
before Christ came the verse stopped there; but after He came, then
God was fully revealed; so the verse finishes with the words "the only
begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared
Him." Will you look up now, and say, "Lord, show me the Father," and
He