Memorials of Faith: God's Historical Interventions

"Christianity is not a philosophy. What's a philosophy? Well, a philosophy is ideas put forward by men in an attempt to try to understand life and our problems and how to deal with them and how to solve them. It's a matter of ideas, of thoughts, and of teachings. The find is that while there is obviously a teaching and a Doctrine which is a vital part of Christianity, that is not the first thing. What differentiates this is that it is first and foremost a record of historical events and historical facts." [00:09:06]

"Christianity is entirely different. It calls attention to facts, and that is why this building, in a sense, is going to do exactly the same as the bread and the wine do in a communion service. They again are calling attention to facts. So we must start with this all-important matter principle and realize that it is vital to our whole situation. The uniqueness of the Christian faith depends upon a series of historical facts and events and the teaching which results from that." [00:11:41]

"These facts, these events on which our whole position is based, are not the result of man's action but God's action. You see, the stones outside Gilgal are not to call attention to anything the children of Israel did. They had to call attention to what God did with the children of Israel. Their memorials pointing people, reminding people of actions, events, historical happenings which have been produced by Almighty God." [00:12:36]

"The message of this building is this: that God has done something about this bondage of ours exactly as he did with the physical bondage of the children of Israel of old. This is Christianity: God's acts of redemption, God's eruptions into time, God coming in and delivering us there amongst the flesh pots of Egypt and in the utter hopelessness of our spiritual despair." [00:23:08]

"God has come down. He didn't leave him there. He didn't say, 'Very well, carry on, let things go on as they are,' and they would have festered to putrefaction. God came down. Why did he come down? Well, he came down not only to tell them the punishment he was going to mete out upon their sin and their folly. He came down to tell them that he'd got a plan of redemption for the whole race." [00:24:49]

"God intervened. He took hold of a man whose name was Abram, who lived in Ur of the Chaldees and who was a pagan. He took hold of this man and he said, 'I'm going to turn you into a nation. I'm going to make my own people out of you, and you are going to represent me. You're going to bear a message, and ultimately through you and your seed, all the nations of the world are going to be blessed.'" [00:26:30]

"When the fullness of the times had come, God—it's always God—God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. We are not here to say what man has arrived at in his thinking and theorizing as to how we can serve God and please him. It's the exact opposite. It's God seeking lost men. It's God bringing and putting into operation his plan of redemption and of salvation." [00:29:41]

"The Spirit came down upon the church, and these simple, ignorant men were enabled to preach with authority and power. Three thousand converted in one day on the day of Pentecost and added to the church. The joyful story of the early Christian church didn't stop at that. They got into difficulties. God came in, intervened them, the miracles that followed, the miraculous escapes from prisons and various other places." [00:33:33]

"The acts of God are supernatural, and they are miraculous acts. These were phenomena, and we are to tell people that our faith is based upon phenomena, and it's a phenomenon in and of itself. What does this mean? Well, we've got to tell people this quite plainly. Our position as Christians differs from that of everybody else." [00:37:08]

"The glory of this salvation is this: it depends upon the power of God, not on our power, not on our understanding, not on our goodness, not on anything in us. It's the power of God, so that if a poor fellow drunk stands outside this building and asks one of you members of this church, 'What's the meaning of this building? What's this Emmanuel Evangelical Church? What's it mean?' you can say to him, 'My friend, it means this: that there is a power that can deliver you from the slavery of drink.'" [00:46:30]

"All these actions and activities of God, of course, have been the carrying out of a great plan and purpose which he determined before he even created the world, and this is but the record of how he's been carrying it out in parts and portions throughout the centuries. But he's going to finish it. It's going to be complete." [00:49:03]

"God is Almighty. The hand of the Lord, it is mighty, and with the moment he arises, he'll blow upon communism, aristocracy, humanism, every 'ism,' and they'll just vanish out of sight. They'll pass away. There'll be nothing left with God, the God who's acted as the history tells us and has worked miracles and has done the impossible and has destroyed the Pharaohs and every other enemy. He will destroy every enemy." [00:50:00]