Do You Know Him?

"That I may know him." Philippians 3:10

The object of the apostle’s life- that for which he sacrificed everything: country, kindred, honor, comfort, liberty, and life itself, was, that he might know Christ. Observe that this is not Paul’s prayer as an unconverted man, that he may know Christ, and so be saved; for it follows upon the previous supplication that he might win Christ and be found in him. To know Christ is the desire of one who has been saved, who enjoys the full conviction that his sins are pardoned, and that he is in Christ. It is only the regenerated and saved man who can feel the desire, "That I may know him." Are you astonished that a saved man should have such a desire as this? A moment’s reflection will remove your astonishment. Imagine for a moment that you are living in the age of the Roman emperors. You have been captured by Roman soldiers and dragged from your native country; you have been sold for a slave, stripped, whipped, branded, imprisoned, and treated with shameful cruelty. At last you are appointed to die in the amphitheater, to make holiday for the tyrant. The populace assemble with delight. There they are, tens of thousands of them, gazing down from the living sides of the capacious Colosseum. You stand alone, and naked- armed only with a single dagger-

a poor defense against gigantic beasts. A ponderous door is drawn up by machinery, and there rushes forth the monarch of the forest- a huge lion; you must slay him or be torn to pieces. You are absolutely certain that the conflict is too severe for you, and that the sure result must and will be that those terrible teeth will grind your bones and drip with your blood. You tremble; your joints are loosed; you are paralyzed with fear, like the timid deer when the lion has dashed it to the ground. But what is this ? O wonder of mercy! -a deliverer appears! A great unknown leaps from among the gazing multitude, and confronts the savage monster. He shrinks not at the roaring of the devourer, but dashes upon him with terrible fury, until, like a whipped cur, the lion slinks towards his den, dragging himself along in pain and fear. The hero lifts you up, smiles into your bloodless face,

whispers comfort in your ear, and bids you be of good courage, for you are free. Do you not think that there would arise at once in your heart a desire to know your deliverer? As the guards conducted you into the open street, and you breathed the cool, fresh air, would not the first question be, "Who was my deliverer, that I may fall at his feet and thank him?" You are not, however, informed, but instead of it you are gently led away to a noble mansion house, where your many wounds are washed and healed with salve of rarest power. You are clothed in sumptuous apparel; you are made to sit down at a feast; you eat and are satisfied; you rest upon the softest cushion. The next morning you are attended by servants who guard you from evil and attend to your good. Day after day, week after week, your needs are supplied. You live like a king. There is nothing that you can ask which you do not receive.

I am sure that your curiosity would grow more and more intense until it would ripen into an insatiable craving. You would scarcely neglect an opportunity of asking the servants, "Tell me, who does all this, who is my noble benefactor, for I must know him?" "Well, but" they would say, "is it not enough for you that you are delivered from the lion?" "Nay," say you, "it is for that very reason that I pant to know him." "Your needs are richly supplied- why are you vexed by curiosity as to the hand which reaches you the blessing? If your garment is worn out, there is another. Long before hunger oppresses you, the table is well loaded. What more do you want?" But your reply is, "It is because I have no wants, that, therefore, my soul longs and yearns even to hungering and to thirsting, that I may know my generous loving friend." Suppose that as you wake up one morning, you find lying up on your pillow a precious love-token from your unknown friend- a ring sparkling with jewels and engraved with a tender inscription, a bouquet of flowers bound about with a love-motto! Your curiosity now knows no bounds. But you are informed that this wondrous being has not only done for you what you have seen, but a thousand deeds of love which you did not see, which were higher and greater still as proofs of his affection. You are told that he was wounded, and imprisoned, and scourged for your sake, for he had a love to you so great, that death itself could not overcome it.

You are informed that he is every moment occupied in your interests, because he has sworn by himself that where he is, there you shall be; his honors you shall share, and of his happiness you shall be the crown. Why, methinks you would say, "Tell me, men and women, any of you who know him, tell me who he is and what he is;" and if they said, "But it is enough for you to know that he loves you, and to have daily proofs of his goodness," you would say, "No, these love-tokens increase my thirst. If you see him, tell him I am sick with love. The flagons which he sends me, and the love-tokens which he gives me, they keep me for awhile with the assurance of his affection, but they only impel me onward with the more unconquerable desire that I may know him. I must know him; I cannot live without knowing him. His goodness makes me thirst, and pant, and faint, and even die, that I may know him."

Have I imagined emotions which would not be natural? I think not. The most cool and calculating would he warmed with desires like these. Methinks what I have now pictured before you will wake the echoes in your breasts, and you will say, "Ah, it is even so! It is because Christ loved me and gave himself for me that I want to know him; it is because he has shed his blood for me and has chosen me that I may be one with him for ever, that my soul desires a fuller acquaintance with him." Now may God, the Holy Spirit, very graciously lead me onward that I may also quicken in you the desire to know Him.

I. Beloved, let us PASS BY THAT CROWD OF OUTER-COURT WORSHIPERS WHO ARE CONTENT TO LIVE WITHOUT KNOWING CHRIST. 1. knowledge of Christ’s historic life 2. knowledge of Christ’s doctrine 3. knowledge of Christ’s example & precepts 4. knowledge Christ’s works 5. heardof Christ and read about Christ 6. second hand knowledge of Christ

I do not mean the ungodly and profane; we will not consider them just now- they are altogether strangers and foreigners to him- I now mean children of God: the visible saints. How many there are of these whom I must call outer-court worshipers, for they are strangers to this panting to know him. They can say with Paul, "That I may win him and be found in him" -that they do want; but this higher wish, "That I may know him," has not stirred their hearts. How many brethren we know, who are content to know Christ’s historic life! They read the evangelists and they are charmed with the perfect beauty of the Savior’s history. "Never a man spoke like this man," say they; and they confess that never man acted with such love as he did. They know all the incidents of his life, from his manger to his cross; but they do not know Him. They are as men who have read "Caesar’s Commentaries," but who have never seen Caesar. They know the battles which Caesar fought; they can even recognize the mantle which Caesar wore "that day he overcame the Nervii;" but they do not know Caesar himself. The person of the Lord Jesus is us much hidden from their eyes us the golden pot of manna when concealed in the ark. They know the life of Christ, but not Christ the Life; they admire his way among men, but they see not himself as the way.

Others there are who know Christ’s doctrine, and prize it too, but they know not Him. All which he taught is dear to them; orthodoxy- for this they would burn at Smithfield, or lay down their necks at Tower Hill. Many of them are well-instructed and divinely-illuminated in the doctrine of Christ, and the wonder is, that they should stop there; because, beloved, it does seem to me when I begin to know a man’s teaching, that the next thing is the desire to know his person. Addison, in one of the " Spectators," tells us that the reason why so many books are printed with the portraits of the authors is just this, that as a man reads a book, he feels a desire to know what sort of appearance the author had. This, indeed, is very natural. If you have ever been refreshed under a minister’s printed sermons, if you have at any time received any benefit from his words, I know you have said, "I would like to see that man; I would like to hear the truth flow hot and fresh from his living lips; I would like to know just how he said that sentence, and how that passage sounded as it came from his earnest heart." My beloved, surely if you know the doctrine of Jesus, if you have so been with Christ as to sit at his feet and hear what he has to say, you must, I hope, have had some longings to know him- to know his person; and if you have, you will have had to pass by multitudes of followers of Jesus who rest satisfied with his words, but forget that he is himself "THE WORD."

Beloved, there are others- and against them I bring no complaint; they go as far as they can- who are delighted with Christ’s example. Christ’scharacter is in their esteem the mirror of all perfection. They desire to walk in his footsteps; they listen to his sermon upon the Mount; they are enchanted with it- as well they may be; they pray to he obedient in all things to Christ, as their Master and their Lord. They do well. Mark, I am finding no fault with any of these who prize the history, or who value the doctrine, or who admire the precept; but I want more. I do want, beloved, that you and I should "know HIM." I love his precepts, but I love HIM better.

Sweet is the water from Bethlehem’s well; and rightly worth the struggle of the armed men to win but a bucket from it; but the well itself is better, and deserves all Israel’s valor to defend it. As the source is ever more valuable than the stream, so is Christ Ever Better than the Best Words of His Lips, or the Best Deeds of His Hand. I want to know him. I do care for his actions; my soul would sit down and admire those masterly works of holy are- his miracles of humiliation, of suffering, of patience, and of holy charity; but better far I love the hands which wrought these master-works, the lips which spoke these goodly words, and the heart which heaved with that matchless love which was the cause of all. Yes, beloved, we must get farther than Immanuel’s achievements, however glorious; we must come to "know HIM."

Most believers rest perfectly at ease with knowing Christ’s sacrifice. They see Jesus as the great High Priest, laying a great sacrifice upon the altar for their sins, and with their whole heart they accept his atonement. By faith they know that all their sin is taken away by precious blood. This is a most blessed and hallowed attainment, I will grant you; but it is not every Christian who perceives that Christ was not only the offerer of a sacrifice, but was himself the sacrifice, and, therefore, loves him as such. Priest, altar, victim- Christ was everything. He gathers up all in himself, and when I see that he loved me, and gave himself for me, it is not enough to know this fact: I want to know him, the glorious person who does and is all this. I want to know the man who thus gave himself for me. I want to behold the Lamb once slain for me. I want to rest upon the bosom which covers the heart which was pierced with the spear. I beg him to kiss me with the kisses of that mouth which cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I love Calvary, the scene of woe, but I love Christ better, the great object of that agony; and even his cross and all his sufferings, dear though these must ever be to the Christian mind, only occupying a second place; the first seat is for Himself, His Person, His Deity, and Humanity.

Thus, you see, we have to leave a great many believers behind; nor have we enumerated all, for I believe that even some of those saints who have received grace to look for the coming of Christ, yet in their vision of his coming too much forget him. Is it not possible for some to pant for the second advent as to lose sight of him who is to make that advent? To so long for the millennium, that I may forget him who is to reign King of kings? So to pant after that glory of Israel that I may forget him who is Israel’s glory? Anywhere short of knowing him, I would not have you stop, beloved; and even when you know him, I would urge you still to he impelled with the same desire, and to press forward, crying with the apostle, " That I may know him."

Beloved, how many there are who have heard of Christ and read about Christ, and that is enough for them! But it is not enough for me, and it should not he enough for you. The apostle Paul did not say "I have heard of him, on whom I have believed," but " I know whom I have believed." To Hear About Christ May Damn You- it may be a savor of death unto death to you. You have heard of him with the ear; but it is essential that you know him in order that you may be partakers of eternal life. My dear hearers, be not content unless you have this as your soul’s present portion.

Others there be who have been persuaded by the judgment and encouragement of others, that they know something about the great Redeemer. They do not know him, but still they are persuaded by others that they have an interest in him. Let me warn you of second-hand spirituality, it is a rotten, soul-deceiving deception. Beware of all esteeming yourself according to the thoughts of others, or you will be ruined. Another man’s opinion of me may have great influence over me, I have heard of a man in perfectly good health killed by the opinion of others. Several of his friends had foolishly agreed to play him a practical trick; whereupon one of them met him and said, "How ill you look this morning." He did not feel so; he was very much surprised at the remark. When he met the next, who said to him, "Oh! dear, how bad you look," he began to think there might he something in it; and us he turned right round the corner, a third person said to him, "What a sight you are! How altered from what you used to be!" He went home ill, he took to his bed and died.

So goes the story, and I should not marvel if it really did occur. Now, if such might be the effect of persuasion and supposed belief in the sickness of a man, how much more readily may men he persuaded into the idea of spiritual health! A believer meets you, and by his treatment seems to say,

"I welcome you as a dear brother" -and means it too. You are baptized, and you are received into Church-fellowship, and so everybody thinks that you must be a follower of Christ; and yet you may not know him. Oh, I do beg you, do not be satisfied with being persuaded into something like an assurance that you are in him, but do know him- know him for yourself.

There are many who I hope will he saved before long; but I am in great doubt of them, because they can only say they half think they know Christ; they do not quite believe in him, but they do not disbelieve in him; they halt between two opinions. Ah, dear hearer, that is a very dangerous place to stand in. The border-land is the devil’s hunting ground. Undecided souls are fair game for the great fowler. May God give you once for all the true decision by which through grace you shall know him. Do not he satisfied with thinking you know him; hoping you know him, but KNOW HIM. Oh. it is nothing to have heard about him, to have talked about him, to have eaten and have drank with him, to have preached him, or even to have wrought miracles in his name, to have been charmed by his eloquence, to have been stirred with the story of his love, to have been moved to imitate him- this shall avail you nothing, unless you win him and are found in him. Seek with the apostle, to give up everything of your own righteousness, and all other objects and aims in life, and say, "This I seek after, that I may know him." Thus much, then, on the first point. Leaving those behind who do not know him, let us make an advance.

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