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Unspoken Sermons

Everyone who reads MacDonald knows that whether it is fantasies, novels, or sermons, MacDonald was singularly focused on revealing the Father Heart of the Divine! Every introduction or biography I have read, one way or another, expresses Fatherhood as the central theme of his life and work. Recognizing this focus makes finding the thesis of the “Unspoken Sermons” quite simple. It is “Abba, Father!” Interestingly, it is at the dead center of the three series and of the thirty-six sermons published over a twenty-year period.

MacDonald teaches as Isaiah says God does in chapter twenty-eight verse ten, “He is trying to teach us letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson.” MacDonald says, “I do not say this as some doctrinal truth, for I aim at no such logical certainty. Rather than prove, I aim to show, using my thoughts progressions to reveal the ideas I am relating.” “Child” Paraphrase

MacDonald would have us all drawn into the big-picture reality of the Divine as C. S. Lewis was in his testimony in Surprise by Joy.

“But now I saw the bright shadow coming out of the book [Phantastes] into the real world and resting there, transforming all common things and yet itself unchanged. Or, more accurately, I saw the common things drawn into the bright shadow. Unde hoc mihi? [Why am I?] In the depth of my disgraces, in the then invincible ignorance of my intellect, all this was given me without asking, even without consent. That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me, not unnaturally, took longer.”

Continue Reading Introduction . . .

NOTE: Because MacDonald wrote the sermons in chiastic form. I recommend your read The Child in the Mist, Abba, Father!, and then The Inheritance to get the largest possible context before moving on to The Consuming Fire and beyond.

Table of Contents

describes us perfectly. I am the Child in the Mist! Perhaps this will describe you as well before your mist is cleared away from the face of the Father. In Scotland, the mist can be so thick that you cannot see the object before you. This sermon redefines us, Jesus, the Father, and the Kingdom itself within a relational context. This redefining is truly amazing in its scope and vision. MacDonald blows the mist away and clearly reveals the Father’s character and nature in a transformational way. If you don’t see and understand this one, it would seem impossible to me to be able to interpret the ones that follow!

wanting only the best for them. His consuming fire is not something to be feared but welcomed as how all that is evil is burned away so that only Life remains. Only when all “that is other” has been completely consumed are we truly liberated and at Home with the Father!

The Scriptures tell us, “. . .what matters is faith that works by love.” What we have seen “is that God is Love, all love, and nothing other than love!” Faith has been defined in our day as an “it,” something that can be worked for, worked, and achieved. In The Higher Faith, it is the language of trust.

it is the irreducible truth of God. MacDonald is more concerned with the relational destruction caused by unforgiveness than any misunderstanding concerning the Son.

received and accepted for each one of us is uniquely created and special in the eyes of our Maker! And we all have a personal and individual relationship with our Heavenly Father.

or does He give us what to desire? Here in this pivotal sermon, MacDonald tells us what The Treasure is. It is Jesus!

and Jesus, but Jesus and us. We see unpacked the Way forward to our New Name and the Life of Christ within.

in the Gospels. Theologians have done more to hide the gospel of Christ than any of its adversaries.

Our participation is the Light for the weary and evidence of the rest for the suffering.

what He thinks and feels towards His neighbors and know His Love for them all!

our hearts will sink within us at the words, “I say to you, love your enemies.” Loving your self is the third commandment implied here in the verse.

the changing of clothes. Like he is tossing aside his garments at night, intending to put on new and better ones in the morning.

and now a dozen years later begins digging into the details of its working. Jesus love this yound man before he came, while he was with Him, and after he walked away!

three sermons of series two. It reveals the practical outworking of the Gospel in the lives of the Father’s children.

dollar-poor? Have we so missed the point that the insignificant has usurped the significant? That we have traded the temporary for the infinite?

and communion with the Divine. This Love that has entered our house, and begins with our participation to sweep it free from the care for thing!

and provision. It is the fruit of our relationship with the Father, Son, and Spirit in which we are seeking Them for Themselves, wanting nothing but Their presence moment to moment.

heart, and life of Christ will rejoice in hearing this changeless truth. Our challenge is to make up our minds and exercise our wills to be righteous, or simply said, to give to all their due. Righteousness is just fairness – from God to man, man to God, and man to man. 

fair to say that MacDonald’s primary passion was revealing and restoring the Father’s heart to His children. Our refusal to acknowledge God as our Father is the primary difficulty of the whole of human affairs. This stubborn independence underlies all most every anxiety and difficulty in life. God is the Creator of everything good and is about the business of drawing His children to Himself and making them good like Himself! We were created in the “image and likeness” of the Divine, and our destiny is to become what we are!

bookends. This chiasm begins with “The Last Penny,” which is all about our debt of love, then “Life” as the reflection on Penny, which is all about the Divine’s debt of love to us, the cost of freedom. . . .

that only one who sees the big picture can offer. This sermon is a message of hope in that we can trust Jesus in His strength to finish what They have started. For in Him is Divine Power perfected in our human weakness. Jesus is the One in whom these extremes find a compassionate balance and a grace for freedom and Life!

difficult subject of Suffering. There are no easy answers to understanding the created pathway to becoming actual participants in the joy and beauty of the Divine Life we are to share. So, “If God is good, why . . .

practical aspects of this life in relationship with Them. He is calling us upwards from our small selves, with our wishes and wants, to our high calling in Jesus Christ. . .

with “The Way.” Its opening question for the “rich young ruler” was, “Leave all and follow me?” Now at the close in “The Truth in Jesus,” the question remains the same but is personally addressed to us.

That all creation is through and in Christ the King. The Trinity, like the atom, contains a relationship between the persons in which Energy and Life exist. It is within this space, through the Life of the Son, that creation exists. The Life we must choose in order to become what we are in Him!

makes all the difference in the world, both now and later! “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3 NAS). If Jesus came in on a Greyhound bus . . .

conversion in Acts chapter nine to reveal the gospel narrative of simple obedience. The Truth of our Being always precedes our doing in order to become what we already are – becoming our true Self through BEING and then DOING reflecting our true self as we have been created to be! Jesus is not a philosopher, and Christianity is not a philosophy. It is a way of living.

which can only be seen through the childlike heart of His children. I know of no one, including myself, whose Jesus is too big! Jesus says He is Truth. What does He mean by this? One certainty I know is that it will not be found from ink on paper.

would be the loss of all that is familiar. All that we have become comfortable within. We have learned to survive in our slavery and are afraid of the unknown beyond. Freedom would be to be thrust into the unknown world of trust in one we do not know. “Better the devil we know than the one we don’t!”

kingdom life from sermon one of the first series, “The Child in the Mist,” is finally summarized.

from his characteristic positive presentation of his beliefs for a direct assault on what he does not believe. The mischaracterization of our Father’s heart by systems of thought, human inventions that create a God more like us in our self-righteous anger, . . .

in words and concepts, but in Life and actions of one Man, Jesus Christ! It is not a proposition or possibility based on various and differing transactions built on . . .

of His love. He uses the story of Martha and Mary and the resurrection of Lazarus. He exposes the lie found in the dramatic example of death as the visible tip of the iceberg of our unbelief. We see all of what we call life through this lens. We are so focused on the temporary that the eternal remains unseen! Our Father is the God of the living, and we live from a stream where there is no such reality as death. . .

and Spirit share and that right shared with all of Their creation, leading us into Life! Anything other than this relationship as righteousness would be to say . . .

In “The Final Unmasking,” MacDonald continues the discussion of righteousness. In “Righteousness,” . . .

If we have not found the first light of heaven in our relationship with our Father, Brother, and Teacher, heaven will be Hell for us! Because Heaven will be continuous fellowship with God! What we receive in the end is Them and what They always wanted from eternity past is Us!