“Why,” we say, “we do know Him.” Well, our knowledge of Him increases continually. You know, just in the natural, if you love a person you have to know him more and more to love him more and more; the more you know him, the more your love is in­ creased; that’s only just in the flesh. How much more so would that same thing be true with Christi I can know Him in the pro­ portion of my knowledge of Him. The more I know Him will bring another reaction. It provokes love in me and devotion, but it also produces deep humility on my part and self-abasement. Sometimes people feel that a good sermon is needed to bring the people on their faces before the Lord and bring them to deep humility. They will preach for about an hour on all the terrible things that they have done (which they all know about) to pro­ duce a psychological effect upon them. You know the reaction would be: now that will humble me. That never does me! Do you know what it does? It scares me! It is a good thing to scare me with, but it never brings me down in deep humility before the Lord. Do you know what does? Just let Him get near me, that’s all. If He just gets near me and I get near Him oh I am all done, I

28

am right flat then like water flowing all over the floor. What did it? It’s just that little touch of God, His kindness. How many have ever been tuned up pretty good by His kindnesses instead of a gad? I have. I have had Him come when I said, “Lord, I don’t want You to be nice to me. I am not fit for it, don’t be good to me. I would rather have You lick me good.” He says, “No, I love you.” “Oh! You can’t!” and I have a camp meeting, not because He licks me, but because He loves me. That is right. “To know Him.” When you begin to know Him you will begin to love Him. Your knowledge of Him, your understanding of Him, your fellowship with Him reveals Him, and you say: “I know Him better today than I did; I know now more how God is than I did before. He has taken me through this and I know more about You, Lord, how You are­ I know yOU better. What will that do? Well, you love Him better, you love Him better, you love Him better.

Paul says, ‘‘I don’t want to know about Him.” Think of all the things we know about Him! Look at all the theology Paul had! How many ever got fed on theology? No you didn’t. You don’t get FED on that! It’s good, but you have to be fed on HIM. Now shall I tell you something the Lord made plain to me? - I have taught theology for years, I have notes on theology that I have had for years and I know its definitions, but that didn’t feed me. I know theology; I know the doctrines; I know all that; I don’t care much about them. I would much rather have Him, because the doctrines are all about Him, all about Him, analytical, descriptive, definition. That is good, but after all that is all about Him, that isn’t WHO He is at all. But you know you must have your doctrine as the basis; you must have your doctrine as the

skeleton, as the system of truth which will hold you, you have to have that. God showed it to me one time when I was having the Com­ munion and He said, “What are you taking?” I said, “You have said to take You because this is Your flesh.” He said, “Yes, it isn’t My skeleton!” How many know what the skeleton is? That is all the doctrine that relates to Him. How many know that’s not the flesh yet? No, it isn’t! So He said, “You don’t need to eat the skeleton, eat Mel” I said, “I see it, Lord, that’s enough.” People today are living on that. They are living on the letter of the Word. There are people tonight that can quote Scripture more than I ever hope to know all through the millenium. They come to me and say,

“What verse is so and so?” I say, “I haven’t the slightest idea, I think it is in the Bible!” “Well, who is Jupitiah?” I say, “I don’t know. I don’t think he is in the New Testament, I think he is somewhere else.” Well, they say, “Don’t you know?” I say, “No-I don’t want to know!” “You don’t?” “Nol” That bothers me. If I need to know what king reigns and Super­ dupus was the other king, I just go to the Bible and I find it. I won’t charge my mind with all that stuff. Do you get me or don’t you? Why charge your mind so that you can say all the verses and all the names of the kings, and then the names of this and the names of that, and the country of this … well, what good is that?

“Oh, brother, he knows the Bible!” Oh I know a lot of people who know the Bible who don’t know God! Who cares to know the name of the king that reigned under such a business as that! I say, “It’s in the Bible, go look it up.” It is like asking me the telephone number of Sarah Jane Smith so and so … “No! it’s in the directory, go and get it.” I don’t want to charge my mind with all the telephone numbers of my friends. I have them in the book and just go look them up. Well, that is like getting the letter of the Word. They know the epistles; the year they were written, and the name of the man who wrote it; they know what was the key verse of the chapter of the second something or other, and what line was this and what line was that. I say, “I don’t know, I think Romans is in the New Testament if I remember right!” Then I go and get my Bible and get something out of Romans. And the Lord warns us against it. That is knowing about Him, knowing about Him: “How many miracles did He work? How many parables did He tell?” “I don’t know, quite a few.” “In which country did He stand when He said that, and where was He in a position when He said this?” Like an old woman said, “Oh! laka mercy on me, I don’t know.” I get the Bible. Because if I am not careful 111 be learning all about Him." No, Paul says, “I want to know Him; I want to know Him.“You know something? It is possible to know Him when we don’t know too much about Him! It is true. It is possible to know Him when we don’t know too much about Him - all those technical things. Those are technical; they are very in­ teresting. But dear me, wouldn’t it be lovely to know HIM! So Paul says, “I found something: It is possible for me to know Him, and He can know me - all about me - and I can share anything I want to with Him.”

31

I dealt with a little woman not too long ago and her name was Lila; she is a dear little soul; she has gone on. She was in her nineties and we were talking about her praying, I said, “He knows, Lila, all about you. He can help you.” “Oh, but Brother Follette, He doesn’t know me?” I said, “Oh yes, He knows you by name.” “Well, would the Lord know my name?!” “Why,” I said, “certainly He knows your name.” Here she was living a little starved life, as though she were a hid­ den rabbit in some brushheap somewhere, and the Lord didn’t know who she was. Think of that! “Why,” I said, “Lila, the Lord knows you, and He knows your name, and He knows everything about you, and you couldn’t tell Him a thing.” Well, she was quite relieved and when we prayed with her she was quite encouraged. Now she didn’t know the Lord, did she? She knew her Sunday School paper, all about the Lord, but she didn’t know Him, so she could go to Him and say, “Jesus,” and lay her condition before Him. She didn’t know that. She knew that there was prayer, and power in prayer, and she knew that He was the Son of God, and a lot of technical things. Paul said, ‘‘That’s good, but I would rather know Him.” So if you don’t learn too much theology, learn Who God is. Now here is a strange thing too that he wants to know: