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     1. Down at the Cross, instrumental   (1:42)
     2. Wonderful   (3:33)
     3. Delight Thyself in the Lord   (17:12)
     4. The Name of Jesus Is So Sweet, excerpt   (1:14)
     5. No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus   (3:16)
     6. Jesus Is All I Need   (3:34)

Psalm 37:4.  Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Colossians 2:9-10.  For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.  ¹⁰And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.

“Delight thyself also in the Lord.”  We might be surprised to find out how much we delight ourselves in ourselves.  It might be surprising, but we hear it in our testimonies, in our preaching, often.  And when we don’t delight ourselves in ourselves, then we’re disgusted with ourselves.  Everything revolves around this old washboard.  We have been rubbing our knuckles through now for centuries, and we’re bleeding, and the washing machine is standing in the corner because we don’t know what it’ll do.  We don’t get acquainted with it.  We don’t read the directions.

I liken it to a woman who got a washing machine, and she thought she had to do the wash just like formerly.  She opened and took the lid off, and there were these wings on the inside like they used to have.  And she put the wash in there and she began to rub the wash around the sides of that, and she couldn’t manage.  She finally got so disgusted with the thing that she went back to her washboard, until somebody came to her and showed her the directions, and showed her what to do with it, and how simple it was now in comparison to her former method of washing.  Instead of rubbing her knuckles bloody, she could just put the suds in the wash machine, and put the dirty wash in there, and put the lid on, and then sit in the rocking chair and read Ripley’s Believe it or Not while the wash was doing itself.

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“Delight thyself also in the Lord.”  The old law, the Bible says, “was given by Moses.”  And that showed us how bad off we were.  And “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” and out “of His fullness”—we’ll never get through throughout the ages of eternity to take out of His fullness—“grace upon grace.”  Not only what we need, but “the desires of our heart.”  And when you get acquainted with Him, you desire to be like Him. 

That desire: oh, I “delight in the law of God after the inner man,” but I can’t rise to keep it.  But now, “thank God, in Christ Jesus.”  We’re “a new creature.”  Christ lives in me: “I live no more; Christ liveth in me.”

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My whole job is to “delight myself” in this newfound treasury.  And piece by piece, it becomes mine as I “delight myself” not in myself.  I don’t say, “Oh, I’m so bad off.  I don’t know what the Lord ever saw in me.”  Well, He saw in you the great emptiness, and so now “He comes to make His blessing flow far as the curse is found.”

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If God did it for me, He’ll do it for all of you.  Beloved, “I live no more.”  What a rest!  What restfulness!  My life is now consumed by drinking in His life, and that moment by moment.

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My whole job is to get acquainted with my Jesus because He is the fountain from which every blessing flows.  And “rivers of living water will flow from within you.”  Oh, to “delight myself also in the Lord,” not in the things that He can do for me, not in “the desires of my heart,” but in Him!  Oh, to get acquainted with Jesus because “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in Him.”  He’s your life.  He’s the life of your body: that’s all we need to know about divine healing.

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I’m so thankful that on the 24^th of January, 1924, the Lord said to me, “If you had any idea of the wonderful things that lie in store for those that get a larger vision of Me, you’d cry day and night to know Me.  And the whole occupation of your life ought to be to seek for Me until you find Me in My fullness.”  Paul did that: counted “everything but refuse for the excellency of the knowledge of the Christ Jesus my Lord.”

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If you have Him for a Father, “how much more shall your heavenly Father give,” “who spared not His own Son”?  And that’s where our prayer time comes in.  That’s why when we have a week of prayer we’re changed.  God gets a chance to get us interested in Jesus Himself.  And Jesus Himself comes and draws so near, takes all the anxiety out of us, all the fidgetiness, brings us into that wonderful rest of faith.

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He comes and He enlightens you.  Jesus Christ within, rises within you to make you know Him.  In the very hour of need, He is the One that fights your battles, answers your questions, solves your problems.  And you don’t take glory to yourself…

Christ becomes your “All and in all” and the Holy Ghost gives you that revelation of the Son of God which you need.  He means nothing to me if He’s not my “All and in all.”  Jesus doesn’t mean anything to me if He is not my righteousness, and lives the righteousness of God within me: the holiness, the humility, the purity, the loveliness, the tenderness, the gentleness of Christ is the fruit of the Spirit.

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I’ve been dragged through all kinds of churches, and I’ve always longed to belong to a church like this, where Jesus would be the center of attraction: where we would seek Him, and find Him, and love Him, and worship Him, and get acquainted with Him.  And it takes a long time because we’re so much in love with ourselves, and we’re constantly stirring up in this mud puddle to see if there ain’t some live pollywogs kicking around there somewhere.  And here’s the “life-giving Spirit” waiting to be my portion, waiting to fill my nothingness with Himself.

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The reaction to a new washing machine in the Faith Home.  “It was such a joy to see that washing machine devour the dirt.  And that’s what it means when the Bible says, ‘delight thyself in the Lord.’”    (from 4:35)

“I have an account in the bank of heaven.  And when some ‘bill’ is presented to me, I can draw out of that account.”    (at 9:41)

An illustration of “You can have all you want”.  “She says, ‘Now, you can go through that box and pick out all the pictures you like and keep them…’  Well, I liked them all.  I emptied the whole box…  And so it is with Jesus: in the New Testament, all these pictures—you can help yourself and have all you want.  I’m so glad when I heard the Lord say one day, ‘God the Father lets us have all that we accept.’”    (from 10:36)

Joy to the World, a hymn by Isaac Watts:

No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

Audio Quality: Fair

Original tape marked (26).  Some stutters were removed.  “…rubbing her knuckles bleedy, bloody” was changed to “rubbing her knuckles bloody”; “put the so… the suds in the washing machine” to “put the suds in the washing machine”; “mig, midnight” to “midnight.” 

Omitted from this recording: “Let us open to 193.  We’re going to take up our offering, which as you know is a missionary offering.  A song of love: ‘The Name of Jesus is So Sweet.’”

A review of this recording in May, 2010 showed that perhaps the volume of the sermon could be increased in a few spots, and reduced in No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus.

The original media and project files are available upon request.