It is my joy to reintroduce to you, because for the student body and faculty, he was introduced earlier in the week when he preached. But for everyone who was not in that service and for our visitors in particular, this man is well known to all of the circle of friends of BJU all over the world. There are generations before you of young people who are now serving God all over the world, who set where you sit and who were greatly challenged and blessed by his ministry. He's like a second father to me. He and my father were like brothers. There was a bond between them that was a joy for those of us in our family to watch. This man has well, he is probably the only man I know in the world that I think I could really call a great man. And he is the last man in the world who would want to be called that. The breadth of his and scope of his service, the magnitude of his responsibility. I don't think any of us in this room, even those who know him closely, have been with him On many occasions could begin to understand. The magnitude of the responsibility, the magnitude of the hostility. The magnitude of the appreciation. God has given him a tender heart and a tough hide, and that's an absolutely indisputable necessity if you're going to lead anything, a tender heart and a tough hide. It is not the magnitude of his responsibility, both as a pulpiteer, as a leader of a church movement, a government responsibility. It is not that that. For which I commend him to you today, it is his Christ loving heart. It is prayerful life. It is life, his life of childlike faith. He and Mrs. Paisley and their family honor the Lord greatly. They're all true hearted servants of Christ. I feel like a spiritual pygmy when I'm around them. I feel challenged and edified. I feel privileged to know them. My life has been richly, richly blessed of God through the friendship they've allowed my wife and me to have with them. And we love them greatly. And we're going to be greatly blessed today, tomorrow, as he opens the word of God to us. Let us turn in our Bibles to the eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 8. I want to read from verse 20 down to verse 31. The 20th verse of the 8th chapter of the book of Proverbs. I lead in the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of judgment. that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance, and I will fill their treasures. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or even the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no fountains, abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth. But as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there. When he set a compass upon the face of the depths, when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, when he gave to the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his commandment, when He appointed the foundations of the earth. Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing the habitable part of His earth, and my delights were with the sons of man. And God will stamp his own infallible, unerring word with his own divine seal of approval. Let us pray. I take the promised Holy Ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost, to fill me to the uttermost. I take. Thank God He undertakes for me. And the people of God said, Amen. Let's have a good Amen. The people of God said, Amen. I want to speak to you upon one of the most thrilling subjects of the Bible. I want to uncover with you, through the wisdom of the Scriptures, what happened in the eternity that has passed, with special reference to verse 30 of my reading. Then I was by him, as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. The delight that Christ brought to the Father the rejoicing and happiness in the Godhead, the mysterious Godhead, the three-in-one and the one-in-three. And I want us to uncover with God's help the past, And then trace the wonder of that past into time. And then take a look of that in the eternity yet to come. This statement from Proverbs is filled with mystery. It is filled with the revelation that we have of Christ in the faraway eternity that is past. It has a reference to wisdom as one of the attributes of the everlasting God. In fact, our catechism puts it as the first attribute. God is a spirit infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom. The emphasis of this scripture is on wisdom. But secondly, It is not merely – if I would dare to use that word of God's attributes – it's not only wisdom, but it is a person who is the wisdom of God. Here we have a mysterious uncovering of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he is seen in the wonder of being the delight of the Father. That, of course, is a subject that no words of mine could even attempt to describe to you. The delight that the everlasting Father had in His everlasting Son through the power of the everlasting Spirit. It bogs imagination. We cannot understand it. But thank God we can believe it. And thank God someday when we all get to heaven, will learn more and more of the Son who gave His Father such a delight in the eternity that has gone by. I would refer you to a scripture in the book of Job. The book of Job at the 28th chapter And I would suggest to you to study it carefully. The 28th chapter of Job and verse 12. And where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof, Neither is it found in the land of the living. The depths saith it is not in me, and the sea saith it is not with me. It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof." Wisdom is the second person of the invisible Godhead in that far back eternity. My text draws aside the curtain. My text shows us the eternity past, which culminated in the present time, which will carry us back to the eternity that shall never finish or of any ending. We are right here in the calendar of God Himself. Beyond what man thinks or says, We are in the place of mystery. The glorious things of this text are wonderful. The delight of the Eternal Son with the Eternal Father by the Eternal Spirit is twofold. There is a communication to us by the revelation of this text of the joys that the eternal, everlasting God has, and the delight of the Father in the Son of His love. There is also, of course, the mystery of the eternity of God himself. I notice, as I look at this text, the mystery of godliness. I see and hear the delight of the Father and the Son together. That is beyond the imagination of any of us. That the Father and the Son had a relationship of delight. It also reveals to me the delight of the Father and the Son in the salvation of man yet to be created. What did the Father communicate to His Son? What did the Son communicate to the Father? What was the great consideration? A world to be created. Man to be created. and sat in a paradise which was a replica of God's heaven, the dwelling place of God in eternity. Yes, and the Father delighted of the man that would be created. to occupy that which is a replica of God's own eternity. And then there was the glorious position of the Son. Where was the Son? He was in the bosom of the Father. The bosom of the Father. There is the result of that. The delight of God is always written where the Son is. There is always delight in the Father's heart. Let us with holy desire this day Like the holy angels of old, let us ask God to let us look into this matter with reverence and godly fear. I have been a long time in the Christian ministry. I'll be celebrating my 83rd birthday in a few days' time. I know I only look like 27. I can't help that. But I have never heard a sermon on this matter. And yet this is a glorious look at something that the mortal mind of man could never look at. This is a look of a soul that has become a partaker of the divine nature of God Himself. And when we come into God's family, we learn to know the Father. We learn to know the Son. And we learn to know the Holy Spirit of God. The wonder of heaven will be that every day we will be learning. And thank God we'll never graduate. The learning will go on for all God's eternity. I love that little word in the book of the Revelation where he's going to lead his people in the glory land. It's not all going to stop. It's not all going to finish. Heaven will never be finished. For God can never be finished. And the eternal life that has come into our souls, which is the very life of deity and the very nature of God put by the wondrous second birth into our hearts, is something that abided forevermore. Oh, the wonder of it. Aren't you glad this morning you're saved by the grace of God? Aren't you glad you're not listening to an old apostate stinking of liquor and tobacco? Aren't you glad you're listening to men who love the Lord? And you've had an experience of grace in your heart I remember the day when as a little boy of six years old, I knelt at my mother's knee and called the Lord Jesus to save me. And He saved me. And He's kept me. And He will keep me. We have all loved ones in the glory. Dr. Bob was mentioned today. No man was nearer to my heart than Him. And I suppose no man was nearer to Him than I was. We were people of like mind. And I owe a debt that I can never pay for God giving me the privilege to know Him, to be with Him, to watch Him, to listen to his speech, and especially when he would come and give me something he had written, because the deepest way to express the feelings of art is not by prose, it's by poetry. And I used to sit and listen to him. And I would say, that's good. It touches my heart. It warms my soul. Yes, but let me not stop there. Let me come a little farther in this wonderful thing that we are considering today. And we see here today the glorious position of the Son in His delighting of the Father's heart. I look at this text and I say to myself, we have something very positive in this text. And the positive thing is this mysterious relationship that is set forth therein. If you turn to John's Gospel, chapter 13 and verse 3. John 13 and verse 3. The presence of the Iscariot is mentioned in verse 2. And then we are told in verse 3, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God and went to God. What a verse is this? Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His heart, and that He was come from God, and went to God. What a description of Christ positively and his relationship with the Father. Then I turn over in the same gospel to chapter 14. And in chapter 14 and verse 16 I read that he says, I will praise the Father. our Lord in His prayer. And I am going to pray that He will give you another comforter. I have got to leave you, but this comforter will abide with you forever. Even the spirit of truth in the world cannot receive Because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you." These are the ones, the words of the one who gave delight to his Father in the eternity that was past and was in the bosom of the Father. Turn a little farther in the New Testament to 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 9. Chapter 8 and verse 9 of 2 Corinthians. And there we read these words, Wonderful words from the Lord Jesus. There's ten men here. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, was He not rich in the delights of the heavenly relationship In that past eternity, I was ever his delight, he said. What a delight he was to God. But though he was rich, and being the delight of heaven, look at it yet for you, for me, rebel sinners, hateful sinners, the children of Satan and sin. Yet for me, a person who was deserved the damnation of hell, what did he do? He sacrificed his delights in God. in order that He might bring you and me into a living relationship with God, that you might share what alone was His in the fellowship of the Godhead in the great eternity that is past. Oh, the wonder of it, that He wants to lift us poor wretches of sin, and put us into His very throne and sit beside us. I had a man, a critic of mine, and he said, you think you're going to heaven? I said, I don't think that I'm going. I said, there's no thinking about this. This is facts. I'll be in heaven. And he says, well, you'll hardly see Jesus very much. There'll be so many people there. and millions of them, and you'll be a non-entity." I said, I am a non-entity now, so I don't need to wait for that to happen. But let me tell you, I said, you're all wrong. Why? I'm going to sit with Him in His throne. Sitting with Jesus in His throne. Think of it. That's what Christ did he was with the Father in the throne. But he was prepared to give up all of those things that brought delight to his father's heart. In order to bring a greater delight to his father's heart, he gave himself that we might be saved by His sovereign grace. Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich. Turn over a little farther. Come with me to Philippians, at the chapter 2, And in Philippians chapter 2, we read these words of the verse 7, But made himself of no reputation. Notice the handy work of our Lord's humiliation. was carried out by Himself. Being formed as flesh and as a man, He humbled Himself. Oh, what a humility He took upon Himself to be made sin for us. That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Help me to understand that. Help me to take it in. What it meant for me, the Holy One, to bear away my sin. Think of it. dwell upon it, that he was prepared to do this. Why? Because he was the one that delighted the Father. And he knew the Father's heart for lost souls. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, and whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Oh, the wonder of it! He made himself of no reputation, and though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor. Turn back in your New Testament to John's Gospel. And in John's Gospel, we have another wonderful statement. John's Gospel, chapter 17, and verse 5, And now, O Father, Glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. What a text. Down here with the blood upon his body. when he sweat great drops of blood. He talks to the Father and he says, Father, glorify me with thine own self. There had been a separation out of the ivory palaces into the world of woe Christ had left to Father's throne. I often try to think about the day when the Father and the Son parted, and the Son went to do the Father's will. No wonder the angels desired to look into it. They couldn't understand it. angelic minds with all their splendid thinking powers. Here was something they couldn't think through. It boggled their minds that it should happen, but it happened. One day when heaven was filled with His glory, one day when sin was as black as could be, Jesus came forth to be born of the Virgin, dwelt among man, my Redeemer is He. Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far away. Rising, we were justified freely forever. And one day, one day He's coming Oh, glorious day. And best of all, I'm going to be really good looking because I'm going to be like Him. I'm going to be like Him. And you many young ladies stand at the looking table with a mirror before you and say, I think I could be improved. Of course, you could be improved. But you'll be really good looking when Jesus comes. We're going to be like Him. Be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is. Face to face shall I behold Him. Face to face shall I behold Him. To look for the first time by sight into His eyes. To take His hand and put my finger into the needle print. To kneel down and take His feet and embrace them. Oh, that will be glory for me. When by His grace I shall look on His face, that will be glory, be glory for me. Doesn't He deserve all our devotion? When I read these things in the Bible, I say, for a sinner like me, Jesus did this. Oh, that I might be like them here on earth. That people might take knowledge of me. That I am a Christ's own person. And that they may see Jesus in me. That's the greatest thing that could happen. And when people see Jesus, when the preacher preaches, and when they see Jesus on the example of the Christian, as he walks in a world of chaos and sin and apostasy. That is the true testimony for Jesus Christ. The testimony of a separated people who have discovered the wonder of the One who delighted His Father's heart in the great eternity. Now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory that I had with Thee. Listen to it. Before the world was a return to the glory. In Isaiah 42 and 1, it says, Behold Thy servant whom I uphold, my elect in whom my soul delighteth, O that we might behold that servant. But if I might just call your attention to another large number of scriptures, and they are contrasted with the ones that I have just spoken to you. Yes, there came a day, what a day, when eternity was left behind and Christ was a beast to the lowest extent. Made in the likeness of sinful flesh. Made in the likeness of sinful flesh. Think of that. the pure, the holy, the delighting Son of the Father. And for your salvation He was subjected to be made in the likeness of sinful flesh. And then He was brought into an acquaintance with grief. He was made totally, brought into the family of the grieving. And then he was sorrowful. And then he was poor. And then He knew shame. And the holy heart that was never offended with any temptation by the devil was to be tested by the devil as a devil through his temptations at Christ. I look upon the descending valley, the descending ladder of accumulation. Every step was a step downward. And he was subjected to the suffering. He was confronted with the withdrawal of the Father. My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me? And he drunk to the dregs the cup of death. This is the same Jesus that delighted the Father. But I learned, as I stand at the cross, and amidst the mystery, The father was delighted that his son was willing to die for sinners. And the greatest delight that Evan ever had was that cry, It is finished! And the work was forever and eternally done. He took my place. He died for me, and He finished the work. He who had been in the state of matchless happiness in the eternity that had passed, He who had the state of the oneness with the Father, so mysterious and wonderful that we're baffled at it as we think of it, He who was the One who gave indescribable and ravishing delight to His Father in all the past eternity. He now brought the greatest of all delight to His Father, for He had saved the souls of men by the shedding of His most precious blood. Let us adore God the Father for giving His Son. Let us adore God the Son for coming and taking our place and dying for us. Let us this day adore the Holy Spirit who has come to live in our soul. and to be a comforter with us forever. And let us see to it that we have a real interest and position in this love. This is a love that passeth knowledge and all understanding. The love that Jesus had for me to suffer on the cruel tree that I a ransomed soul might be is more than tongue can tell. If Christ, who lay in the bosom of the Father, gave it up for me, how can I cling to anything that would mar my relationship and fellowship with Him? Remember, when death seizes us as it will, if the The Lord's coming doesn't intervene before. All it can do is to be an obedient doorkeeper for us. To open the door from death into everlasting life. I love those words in John's Gospel, chapter 10. He that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Thank God we shall enter the same joys which Christ entered, with the Father in the past eternity when we shall be delighted in the coming eternity to see him face to face and to take the chalice that is filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Let's bow our heads. I'm sure the Lord has been speaking to your soul today, dear believer, as He has spoken to mine. I'm sure we look into our hearts. We know the things that must offend them. We know the weakness that we have. We know how we came in so easily to the temptations of this world. But I call you today to come with me to Calvary. And let's kneel together around the cross. And let's say, Lord, we're not what we should be. We're not what we could be. But this day, I want to make a glad and full surrender. I want to be what you want me to be. I want you to see me doing the things that will bring honor and glory to your name. I want to be at my best for God. I mourn my own weaknesses. I mourn my own fearlessness. I own today that I have the love for the souls of men that I ought to have. I am not as faithful as I should be. Lord, You need to come and send the power of Thy Spirit upon me that I may be truly filled with the Spirit of God. If that is how you are feeling, thank God for that. And may God help you to get through to the cross. Get the fresh cleansing of the blood and know the infilling of the Holy Spirit of God. Father, we thank Thee for Thy help in delivering Thy Word. We thank Thee for the reality of Your presence in this house today. And we thank Thee that Thou canst make us what Thou want'st us to be. Start working, O Lord, in my heart. Take away the sins that so easily beset. Take away the compromise that dishonors Thy name and Thy Church. And, O God, make me what You want me to be, a clean vessel in the hand of the mighty God of Jacob. Do it for each one of Thy people. Break us down before Thee. May we cry out for Thy blessing. Amen and Amen.