KNOWING GOD BETTER

“The Lord has established His throne in the heavens and His kingdom rules over all (over the universe)” (Psalm 103:19).

In 1946, when I was two years old, my parents moved from a tiny town on Vancouver Island to the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. Dad had taken a job at one of Canada’s largest lumber mills and Vancouver became my home city. I lived in one of the most beautiful cities in the world until I left for college in California in the fall of 1963.

My parents were both Spirit-filled Christians, commonly known in those days as Pentecostals. After settling in Vancouver, our family began attending the largest Spirit-filled church in Vancouver and according to some reports, the largest Protestant church in the city at that time.  Those were the days when a good-sized evangelical church ran a few hundred people and most Pentecostal churches averaged less than a hundred people. Evangelistic Tabernacle, our home church, had a sanctuary that would seat 1800 and the church was often packed to the doors. It was a true megachurch before the term was ever thought of.

When I was a kid, we did not go to church for one sixty-minute service with a little bit of worship and a brief teaching. Church on Sunday morning was short if it went only two hours and then we were back on Sunday night for an evangelistic service. Tuesday night was prayer meeting at church and Thursday night was Bible study.

My pastor, Ern Baxter, was one of the great preachers of that time and was known to many as “the prince of preachers.” Not only was he the pastor of our church but he often traveled with one of the well-known faith healers of the ’40s and ‘50s, William Branham. Pastor managed the campaigns for Branham and conducted the afternoon Bible teaching sessions. In those days it was not unusual for the healing campaigns to have day services where the teaching was on faith and divine healing. The focus of most of the evening meetings was prayer for the sick and miracles. The campaigns would sometimes last for weeks, with services every day, and were held in large auditoriums or tents that would seat 5,000 to 10,000. It was a very different time in the church in the U.S. and Canada.

It was under Ern Baxter’s ministry that I received Christ as my savior at the age of five. When I was eleven I went with my older brother to our church camp and there, along with many of my friends, I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. If I remember the night at camp correctly, it was Ern Baxter who laid hands on me just before I began to praise God in a heavenly language. I think it is fair to say that I have a spiritual connection with this man.

Baxter left our church when I was in my early teens and while I heard about him from time to time after that, I never had direct contact with him again. A couple of weeks ago I came across one of his sermons on the Internet. Entitled “Thy Kingdom Come,” the sermon was preached in 1975. I must say that it is an incredible message and as I read through it, one of Baxter’s statements really struck me. Perhaps I found the statement so profound because over the last year I have been studying on how to know God better. My study began with J.I. Packer's very powerful book “Knowing God” (which I think, outside of the Bible, is one of the most impactful books I have ever read). When I read Ern Baxter’s concise statement about the supremacy of God, I was struck with the simple profundity of it. I copied his statement from the sermon so that I could ponder it, and the more I read it the more profound I find it.

I decided to take a different approach to the blog this week and I am sharing the statement my former pastor made. I hope you will take time to reflect on it.

"The Bible tries to tell us in simple language of the ultimacy of God. There is none before Him. There is none beside Him. He takes orders from none. He was created by none. He is Life—Self Existent. There is nothing in Him that should be out of Him. Nothing out of Him that should be in Him. He remembers nothing because He's forgotten nothing. He learns nothing because there is nothing He does not know. He does not need to know because He holds all truth simultaneously. He is the God of the Eternal Now. He can look at human history from the beginning or the end or the middle—for all things are known to Him."

                                                                                                   (Ern Baxter)

“The Lord sits enthroned as King forever (over the ages)” (Psalm 29:10).