“Beloved … it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” Will you trust Him? If you are here today without Jesus Christ, you’re dead in trespasses and sins. He can cleanse you, and He can forgive you. He alone can bring you into conformity to His will. Oh, He may dig deep in your life, but He’s not doing it to hurt you. He’s doing it that He might “cause all things to work together for good for them that love God.”

That’s what we are in His sight. A piece of just a block of shapeless marble. He, the Holy Spirit, has the ideal. He takes the hammer of the Word of God; He takes the chisel. “Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and he child-trains every son that He receiveth.” He begins to work. When He begins to work in your life and my life, and suffering comes to us, and things come that we cannot understand, we look up, and we say, “Why? Oh, God, why?” He says, “That’s all right. You’re just a hard piece of marble, and I have to dig in deep to make you the kind of a person I want to be in heaven someday.”

Paul in Romans, the great declaration of the faith that saves, he gives it to us. He says: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it’s the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith, for the just shall live by faith.” God justifies a sinner by faith. He asks you to do the same thing He asked Habakkuk to do—to believe Him that He’ll save you; He’ll justify you, and you’ll stand before God absolutely having your guilt removed.

He’s the “Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.” Friends, the Cross wasn’t an ambulance that God sent to a wreck. The Cross is not God’s emergency. It’s not an air raid shelter that He put up hurriedly to meet a situation that was not planned for. May I say to you, He’s the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” And God sent Him down in the fullness of time, according to God’s plan. He came forth, “born of a woman, made under the law,” that He might redeem men even unto the law. And that He might redeem you today.

We’ve been called out of darkness into His marvelous light today. And we today are to walk in light. We today have got the thing all mixed up. We talk about how a man walks, and it’s not how a man walks today—it’s where a man walks. You’re to walk in light. Because today when a man walks according to the “how,” he always pleases himself, because we can make up our own little rules and say we’re spiritual. But that’s not the measure. It’s not how you walk today; it’s where you walk. Are you walking in light—the light of the Word of God? That’s the thing that’s important.

Now God loves you. It doesn’t make any difference who you are. You can’t keep Him from loving you. Now you can get into a place where you won’t experience the love of God. When you put up an umbrella of sin, the sunshine of God’s love sure won’t fall on you. But it’s still there for you. And you can put up the umbrella of indifference; you can put up the umbrella of turning your back upon Him and not doing His will. There are several umbrellas you can put up to keep the love of God from shining upon you. But you can’t keep Him from loving you. God loves you.

God’s people, I’m sure, are disturbed, they’re desperately reaching out because of the things that are happening. The Lord Himself said, “Men’s hearts will be failing them … when they see those things coming on the earth….” Well, we’re at that stage for sure. But, my friend, let’s understand that God is still running the thing. He’s still in charge. It hasn’t slipped out from His hands. God is not biting His fingernails, and He hasn’t slipped to the edge of His throne. He’s not nervous today about what’s happening. God is carrying out His plan and purpose, and He’s overruling the sin of man. That makes it very comforting, by the way, should be to the child of God today.

“It fortifies my soul to know that, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe’er I stray and range, whate’er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall that, if I slip, Thou dost not fall (Arthur Hugh Clough).” I have a God today I can depend on. He can’t depend on me, but I can depend on Him. He’ll never change. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The supreme object of everything that exists, it’s for the glory of God. What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Why do you exist? You do not exist for yourself. You do not exist to satisfy your selfish needs. You do not exist to accumulate something in this world. You exist for God. He created you for Himself. And that’s the chief end of man, and you and I fail in life when our life is not for Him. The supreme object of everything is for His glory.

You cannot know God today apart from Jesus Christ. And you cannot know anything about Him. That’s the reason He came 1900 years ago—not primarily really to redeem man. He came first to reveal God. He spent 33 years in doing that. He spent only 6 hours on a cross to redeem the world. It took 33 years to get over to man who God was. If you’re to know God, you’ll have to go to Him today. You see, nobody ever discovered God. God is revealed. And you have to come to His revelation and let Him speak to you there, and He only speaks through the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.