“But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark” (Genesis 8:9).
This is an illustration rather than a type and I believe the Holy Spirit put it here for that purpose. I do not wish to enter this strange and beautiful region of the Genesis world, for the landscape is as mysterious as it is lovely, but its scenes are sketchy and fragmentary, and I leave it for somebody else. I want to use this picture of the dove to illustrate why the Holy Spirit has not filled this church.
First, we notice the world as God saw and judged it before the flood. God searched into the hearts of men and He saw that humanity was corrupt and wicked, filled with evil thoughts and imaginations continually. In addition, God saw the ways of man; that they were corrupt, violent and engrossed with immorality, even amid their corruption and violence. The result of what God saw among men was grief to God’s own heart. As I said before, only love can grieve. You cannot grieve unless you love and God loved the man whom He had made. The degenerate and corrupt race that descended from Him and His love caused Him to grieve, and it filled Him with anxious care.
Sometimes, in the world of medicine, the kindest thing a physician or surgeon can do is amputate an infected leg and remove that which otherwise would kill the patient. However shocking it may be and however terrible the news might be to the patient, the best news for him is amputation; otherwise it would be death.
Therefore, the dear God who loved mankind looked upon man and saw that moral corruption had gotten such a hold on man, and had gone into the entire bloodstream infecting all the tissues and cells. He knew humanity would die unless He sent a kindly judgment to destroy it and save a few and start over; that the race might not perish, borne down by the spongy corrupt weight of its own sins.
Therefore, God sent a judgment on the earth, and the waters covered the earth as they had formerly covered the sea. And after the passing of a great many days, a great number of days, one-hundred-fifty days, the ark still floated there with eight persons aboard and with two of the animals, birds and all the creatures that would drown, so they did not die. Noah did not take fish nor aquatic animals because they could live in the water, but the ark took all that which would die by the waters of the flood. There they were in the ark, and of course, after the passing of so many days, it had long passed the flood stage where people and things were simply dead. Corruption had already started to set in and when they settled upon Ararat, Noah opened the ark and turned a bird out to see.
The windows of the ark were upward toward heaven and apparently, there were no portholes out, so Noah could not look down. Noah decided to find out from the bird whether there was dry ground below, whether the waters of judgment had assayed. He opened the window and pushed the raven out and we have a sight the like of which is probably very hard to visualize or understand, but there it is, the sight of a dark bird sailing across the desolation.
Now what was that desolation? What did it amount to; what did it add up to?
It added up to the judgment of God; because the angry displeasure of God was on the world and the waters of the judgment, the boiling silt and the floating corpses and all dead things and bits of flotsam and jetsam were there upon the waters. They were a mark of the judgment of God upon the world. The dark bird sailed across the desolation and his dark heart felt at home there for he was a flesh eater and felt at home among the corpses. As that raven sailed away from the warm lighted ark, and from the presence of Noah, he croaked with delight. Out there swollen with internal gases until their hides were as tight as a drum and then wetted with the waters of the flood, these floating things, cattle and all creatures, corpses, human corpses floating there in the waters was a delight to the appetite of the raven. To everything and everybody else, it would have been a repulsive and horrible sight, but the raven was built for it. Something in his dark heart loved it because he lived on it. So, he immediately sailed down, lighted on a likely corpse, and began to tear with his great claws and with his huge beak great hunks of half-rotten flesh. He tore away, ate until he was gorged and sleepy with overeating and then fastened his claws down into the floating things.
Happy and restful he went to sleep croaking a good night word to the happiness he found his heart wanted.
Corruption, desolation, silt, flotsam, rotten flesh and dead things fitted his disposition and his temperament; so he fed on the floating death. This is not a type but a brilliant illustration of how things are in the world today.
When man sinned, he deserted God and went out from the place that had been Eden, the garden eastward in Eden, and began to propagate himself. Man had the judgment of God upon him. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17 KJV).
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:” (Hebrews 9:27 KJV), says God. He is displeased with every man, and unless we repent, we shall all perish and all the nations of the world shall be turned into hell. God is displeased with the nations of the world. He is displeased not only with the east; He is displeased with the west. He sent His judgment not only upon the Iron Curtain countries, but He sends His judgment upon the so-called free nations of the world. So that the great judgment of God is upon humanity, all stock of humanity; red and yellow, black and white, educated and uneducated, cultured and uncultured, cavemen and learned men around the world.
Yet because man has that thing called sin, it doesn’t seem to bother people at all because they are just as the raven was, at home in the desolation. His dark heart had an affinity for the judgment and desolation, so it is that men find themselves at home in a world under the judgment of God. The only one good Man that ever came to the world could only manage to stay alive thirty-three years, and then they took Him out and nailed Him on a cross. The better men are, the worse they are despised by those who love the desolation and the darkness that is the sin of the world. Just as the raven never came back to the ark, but lived out there in the desolation, so men have built their civilization upon the floating death you find everywhere.
We like to think otherwise. We are proud of our culture and proud of our bridges, our roads, our buildings and all the things we can do. But God looks on the heart and God says the world is filled with violence. It is filled with violence and corruption and iniquity just as it was then, but the woeful thing is we accept it as such instead of being horrified by it.
We accept it, excuse it, and write books to call it something else.
I think for instance the sodomy of homosexuality that brought the fire of God down on Sodom and Gomorrah. I have seen and read books written to excuse this and to say it is quiet the proper thing. If a man is born with the yen for another man instead of a woman, he is natural and ought not to be criticized. He is living his own nature and we ought not to call it something bad, but it is just his way of living. Learned professors rise, rattle their degrees, stand up and argue in favor of sodomy and every other vice under the sun.
The judgment of God is upon the world. Noah sends out the raven, and the raven never comes back because it is pleased with what it sees.
Noah then sends out the dove. Noah put the dove upon his wrist, and she took off and whirled and banked and turned and banked. Soon he heard the whirl of the wings again; he put out his wrist, she hopped on his wrist and he pulled her back in. She had something in her that could not stand corruption. She could not stand filth. She could not stand bloated corpses. She could not stand what the raven loved, because she had in her not the dark heart of the raven, but she had in her the heart of the dove. It was not for nothing when the Holy Ghost came down upon Jesus; He came in the form of a dove, the pink feet and the round bright eyes of the dove. Ah, those pink feet will never land on anything dirty; those pink feet will never land on anything filthy, and those round bright eyes will never look with love upon anything that is filthy. The dove is a type and picture of the Holy Ghost; harmless, pure, meek, sensitive and loving, and so she came back. She could not stand it. The judgment of God was everywhere, and the silt and the filth and the flotsam was too much for a dove’s heart; so she came back and asked to get in the best she could, fluttering against the edge of the window. So Noah pulled her in and kept her there for a while.
Now why did Jesus say, when He spoke of the Holy Spirit say, “Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.”? There is one thing absolutely that Christians ought to get in their minds, it is that the world knows nothing about the Holy Ghost. The world knows nothing about the Spirit. The world knows about good men. The world appreciates a good man if he gives to colleges and hospitals, runs the clinic to take care of lepers. They will write books about him, and celebrate him. The world knows about good men, but the world has absolutely no affinity for the Holy Spirit, because even good men are under the judgment of God. The best that we have in the world, our universities, our oratorical societies, the best we have apart from the new birth, apart from the presence of God in the life of a man, is only corruption and the wrath of God is upon it.
The world cannot receive it and I think that the most awful, the most terrifying thing that the sensitive Christian heart can hear is the whirling of the wings of God. God wants to come down. He wants to get into our Houses of Parliament. He wants to get into our Congresses and Senates. He wants to get into our United Nations. He wants to get into our groups that play baseball and hockey. God wants to get in, but He cannot get in because the judgment, His wrath, is upon men. His fury is upon the corrupt, violent and vicious world, so the Holy Spirit is restless and He cannot come down. He would come down, for He loves humanity. He loves the blackest sinner in the entire world that might be you or me, because sin is of the heart as well as the body.
Now it would be something else again if all I had to say were that the world could not receive the Holy Spirit. But that which gives me the most concern is that, the Holy Ghost cannot even light upon Christians. Now, every Christian has a measure of the Holy Spirit, let us get that straight. Except a man has the Holy Spirit, he is none of His and when the Holy Spirit converts a man and regenerates a man there is a deposit of the Holy Spirit in the life of that man. That is one thing.
I want you to know my theology is quite sound indeed. I am trying to get through to you a truth I want you to hear, and it is that the Holy Spirit is in some measure resident in the breasts of everybody that is converted, otherwise they would not be converted. The Holy Spirit does not stand outside of a man and regenerate him. He comes in to regenerate him. That is one thing and we are glad and grateful for that.
That is one thing, but there is quite another thing for the Holy Spirit to come down with His wings outspread, uninhibited, free and pleased, to fill lives, to fill churches, and to fill denominations. That is quite another thing. That some measure of the Holy Spirit is in the breast of every man is good and right and real, but that the Holy Spirit wants to come down as the dove wanted to land on the earth on dry ground and could find no place for the sole of her foot, that is also true.
Now the Spirit seeks among us a resting place for His feet and we have called these lightings down. These comings down, we often have called them revivals, and we are languishing for the lighting down of the Spirit. But the simple truth is, unless we have a lighting down upon evangelicalism, upon fundamentalism, upon such churches as our lives churches, unless we have a lighting down, unless the Dove of God can come down with His wings outspread and make Himself known and felt among us, that which is fundamentalism today will in twenty-five years be liberalism. You can be as certain of that. And liberalism will be universalism because this vile world is not a friend of grace to lead us on to God. We are going the other direction.
Have you thought about it my brother? Or are you simply running around being entertained? We must face judgment one of these days. We are going to stand before the Man whose eyes are like fire and out of whose mouth there comes a sharp two-edged sword. We are going to have to talk to Him about deeds done in the body. We are going to have to face what is called the Judgment Seat of Christ and be judged for the deeds done in the body. We are going to have to show Him that we have been serious about all of this; that we were not out to be entertained, but we were out that we might be holy. The Spirit is seeking rest for the sole of His foot. He is seeking it, and yet I hear the fluttering of holy wings and I hear the mourning sound of Him who is grieved and quenched. I see Him looking about for signs of repentance, for signs of sorrow of heart and the lifting of the judgment of God from the church.
When God judges the world it will be terror and fire, but now God wants to judge the church. He wants to judge you and me, His children. He wants to begin at the house of the Lord and He wants to begin to judge us. In the absence of the full power of the Holy Ghost is perpetual condemnation. Now what are the marks of Gods displeasure upon His people? What are the marks of them?
Let me name a few of them for you. Plain sins which nobody can deny; sins of act and habit, sins of selfishness such as reveling in wealth while the world starves, living like kings while millions perish, sins of the heart such as lust. You know you can be a Christian, or at least you can belong to a good church, and still have lust in your heart. You can belong to a good church and still has spite in your heart. Because you go to the pastor, elders or deacons, whoever takes them in in your church, and they cannot look in your heart and know whether you have lust in there or not. We have all cultivated the religious grin. We all manage to look pious when the occasion comes up, so when we apply for membership. We smile piously and they say he is a good young man. But in his heart there is lust, and God hates it and the dove will not come down. He cannot look in a woman’s heart and see that she is spiteful there because the woman across the street has a longer car than she has, or a fur coat that costs more. She cannot see resentment that is in the hearts of people and laying there.
There are churches where deacons and elders sit on the same board for years with unconfessed resentment in their hearts. Resentment in the heart of man is just as bad as adultery, and resentment and spite in the heart of the woman is just as bad as the world.
We have this kind of evil thing in our heart; resentment. I have met people that just lived with resentment. You know friends, I just will not stay mad at anybody. I refuse, absolutely. I come from a fiery, nervous English strain. My father’s temper was like the trigger on an atom bomb, and he could blow up. I have seen him take a shovel and beat a wheelbarrow in anger. Just beat a wheelbarrow. I got it but I will not stay sour at anybody; I refuse to do it. I refuse to have resentment will and unforgiving spirit eat at my vitals. Forgive the person for God-sake, forgive him sister. He did not know any better anyhow. Even if he did, he’s sorry now; forgive the fellow, and you will feel better inside.
Yet we have it: spite, jealousy, envy and pride. Pride of person and pride of creed and pride of possession, and pride of race and pride of accomplishment.
Then there is coldness of heart toward the Godhead. We sing about God and we pray, but it lacks warmth. And we worship, but coldly and stiffly toward the languishing church. Back in Israel the man of God warned the Jews. He said, “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!” (Amos 6:1). They stretch themselves on beds of ivory and make instruments of music like David, but they are not grieved for the judgment of Israel, and that is where we are.
We are fundamental; sure we are. Carry our Schofield Bibles, sure, we do. We are evangelicals, but the church is languishing and we do not care. At least we do not care very much.
Then there is the poor, sick world out there. I for my part, I do not want to be happy while the world perishes. Nobody loves the world quite enough. The man who loved the world enough to die for it, died for it. And the man who loved Israel enough to want to perish for Israel cried out, “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3). That was Paul.
We do not seem to have it much these days. Much of our Christianity is social instead of spiritual. We should be a spiritual body with social overtones. Instead of that, most of our churches are social bodies with spiritual overtones. The heart of the church always ought to be Christ and the Holy Spirit. The heart of the church always ought to be heaven, and God, and righteousness; and they that love the Lord spoke often, one to another, and what they spoke about was spiritual things.
I have met men you could not talk to about anything but God. I have met saints like that, who are so interested in the things of God that nothing else mattered. Ah, my brother and sister, the Holy Spirit loves people like that. He loves that kind of spirit; and He is quick to come, to fill, and to take charge. He wants to do that for us.
Now I close with this story. A man was on a train once. I do not remember where I was traveling from, but he got on and he sat down with me. I knew the man was a missionary from India. He seemed very tender and broken, and he said, “I’d like to ask you something Mr. Tozer. I’m troubled and I’m bothered, and I’d like to ask you something.”
I said I am so used to it, just another one I thought.
He said, “This is my problem. A number of years back a strange thing happened on our mission compound in India. We had been having blessing; people were blessed and everything was going all right. But, the missionaries got together for a little conference with some national Christians and we were all sitting around together. A Presbyterian preacher, a missionary, got up to preach to us. He preached, and he sat down. And, Mr. Tozer, I will never be able to describe what happened and I don’t know why it happened, but suddenly there came down on that assembly something like a wave of love and light and it broke us up completely. One missionary ran to another one and said forgive me, forgive me. And another ran to another, and they wept and hugged each other. Now, this has resulted in something strange. My home has been completely transformed.”
“Now, my wife and I were getting along perfectly well, a normal Christian home, but oh the difference since that time; home is heaven now.”
But he said, “Now, that doesn’t bother me. Here’s what bothered me. Since that time, I am so tender and I weep so easily that it bothers me. When I get up to preach, I am just as likely as not to break down and cry. I was never that way before.”
“But,” he said, “since the coming down that day, that sudden wonderful visitation, in India, I just cry so easily, my heart is tender. I get up to speak and there it goes again.”
He said, “Coming across on this ship I had this experience. They asked me to take chapel on shipboard one morning and I did. They told me there were some Communists who would be present in the service. I took my text; and there it came again, the memory and all the glory came down on me and I just begin to cry, and I couldn’t finish my sermon.”
I said to him when he finished, “What did the Communist think of it; did they make fun of you?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “They were very reverent about it.”
Now I am not saying anything good about a Communist; I can’t. At least in this case the Holy Ghost shut the mouths of the Communist. And then I said to my friend, “Bert, you’ve asked me for advice; how can you overcome your tender heart?” I said, “For God’s sake brother, don’t try it.”
We have so many dry preachers, and we have so many men who could not shed a tear. I told him, “If you can keep the tears of God on you and keep your heart tender, keep it brother. You’ve got a treasure I’d never give up.”
But you know how he got that way? The coming down, the lighting down. Now I do not think that Presbyterian preacher had anything to do with it, he might have you know. God could have used him; but they got right with each other, they got cleaned up, they got trouble out of their hearts, and they got their sins put away. Even missionaries got their sins put away, and when there was no more evidence of the displeasure of Almighty God, the Holy Ghost came down.