Ringtails Cage

2 CORINTHIANS II 15

2005-11-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

2 CORINTHIANS II. 15, 16.

"For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?"
The term "savor," signifies literally, anything that affects the organs of taste or smell; a sweet savor, is that which has a pleasant odor or taste. The incense and perfumed offerings which were made under the law, were to signify such offerings as are acceptable to God, and things with which God is well pleased; and in this sense we understand it is used by the apostle in our text. In the preceding verse Paul says, "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place: for we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ," &c. As the members of Christ, as his apostles, standing in him, by whom the savor of his knowledge is made known in every place, the apostles, their gifts and labors in the gospel, are well pleasing to God, not only in the effect produced on them that are saved, but also on them that perish. In drawing the line between the living and the dead, in feeding, comforting and building up the saints, and in exposing the hidden things of dishonesty, they draw down on themselves the wrath and persecution of the enemies of God and truth. So that in every place where they were called to labor, whether men would hear or forbear to hear, whether sinners were converted to God, or enraged by the testimony, in all cases God caused them to triumph, or made their ministry effectual, either by bringing to light those who have an ear to hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, or in exposing those who were those who were of the opposite character; in no cases were their labors in vain in the Lord. "We are unto God a sweet savor of Christ." There was nothing in even the apostles, which was well pleasing unto God but what was of Christ. They, in themselves, were by nature children of wrath even as others, hence all that they possessed as the children of God, disciples of Christ, or apostles of the Lamb, was of Christ, and the savor of that treasure which was committed to them, as unto earthen vessels, was a savor of Christ unto God. Their election, their calling, their qualifications for the ministry, and their administrations, were acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ.
"To the one we are the savor of death unto death." That is to the one class, for they are presented in our subject as two classes, them that are saved, and them that perish. To the latter class, the apostle says we are the savor of life unto life. But how are we to understand this declaration? Does he mean that the preaching of the gospel is to them who perish the cause of their damnation, or of their perishing? That the gospel proposes to them terms, conditions, and proffers, and their rejection of them, or failure to comply with them, is the cause of their eternal death? Certainly not, for such is not the truth. Neither the gospel itself, nor the preaching of the gospel, can possibly injure any one. The gospel has no more power to damn, than the law has to justify and save. Condemnation and wrath is by the law, justification and immortality is by the gospel. The law is the administration of death, but the gospel administers life only to them that are saved, for those unto whom this life is administered cannot perish. Christ has said, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of my hands. How then, are these apostles the savor of death unto death in them that perish? We understand the matter thus. To them that are dead in trespasses and sins, the preaching of the gospel only comes in the letter, or external sound of it; it falls upon their deaf ears as a dead letter; it has no life in it to them, inasmuch as they being dead, cannot receive it in its spirit and life. Take a bird from the open air, and confine it in water, as its nature is not adapted to the water, this element is death to the bird, but it is life to the fish. But the water, although adapted to the nature of the living fish, can administer no life to the dead fish. So the preaching of the apostles was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. The word can only come to the dead, in the oldness of the letter, and not in the newness of the Spirit. To them it comes in word only, not in power, or in the Holy Ghost, or in much assurance, as it comes to quickened sinners; to them, Christ who is the substance of the gospel, is as a root out of dry ground, having no form or comeliness, and they have no desire for a knowledge of his ways, and the preaching of the cross is to them foolishness. It being spiritual, and they being carnal, they cannot comprehend it, they cannot feast upon it, nor can they derive vitality from it until they are quickened by the Spirit, and born of God; for the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit; for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
But to the other, that is to the living children of God, who possess life, the gospel is the power of God and the wisdom of God, it has life and comfort in it to cheer, sustain and animate that life that is in them. It is death to their carnal nature, to their outward man which perishes it has no life; but the inward man is by it renewed day by day. Every Christian must know in his own experience, that the gospel is full of life, joy and consolation to them, for they live upon it; it is Christ, and him crucified, and it is therefore the bread of heaven unto them. When the apostles and primitive ministers of the word were preaching, in all the examples recorded in the New Testament, there were some who gladly received the word, who fed upon it, and there were others who had no relish for it, who could not receive it, and who resisted and blasphemed. They preached Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and tot he Greeks foolishness, but unto them who are called, both Jews and Greeks, it was Christ, (and therefore life, for Christ is the Life) the power of God, and the wisdom of God. "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us what are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." Not them which do not believe, it is death to them, but the sheep of Christ, and they hear his voice, and they know his voice; but a stranger they will not follow, for they know not the voice of strangers.
"And who is sufficient for these things?" Who is sufficient to discriminate between the living and the dead, between them that are saved, and them that perish? Who is sufficient to pour forth into the hearts of God’s living children the streams of that river that makes glad the city of our God, to warm, revive, comfort and refresh them, while in their pilgrimage, and to bear the reproach, persecution, rage and violence of those unto whom the preaching of the word is foolishness? Those, and those only, whom God sustains, whom he causeth to triumph in Christ, as he did the apostles, are sufficient for the work whereunto the Holy Ghost has called them. Through him they can feed the flock of God, over the which the Holy Ghost has made them overseers, and through their God they can rush through a troop, and leap over a wall. But no part of the excellency of the power of the gospel is of them; it is of God, it is a sweet savor of Christ unto God, in them that are saved. The very fact that the gospel as preached by them does not feed, comfort or build up the unregenerate, that it is death unto death unto them that perish, is as irrefragable testimony that they are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, as when they are the messengers of joy and comfort to them that are saved. For the preaching of the cross, if preached in its purity, is just as sure to be foolishness to the ungodly, as it is to be the wisdom of God to them that are saved.
Middletown, N.Y., June 15, 1855 Elder Gilbert Beebe posted by KNH

CHRIST THE ANTITYPEO

2005-11-20T17:12:00.000-08:00

CHRIST THE ANTITYPE
OF ADAM

"But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the sufferings of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." – Heb. ii. 9.
Our excellent brother, Elder David W. Patman, of Georgia, has made some very appropriate remarks on the above text, and in his conclusion expressed a desire to hear from us on the same subject. We have not the vanity to presume that we can improve upon what he has written on the subject, but feeling a desire to gratify him, we will attempt to offer a few remarks, in perfect harmony with what he has said. In this connection the inspired writer of the epistle shows that all the knowledge that mortals ever had, or ever can have, of the things of the eternal Spirit, is by revelation from God. God spake to the patriarchs and their children, under the old dispensation, by the prophets. The prophets spake as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost; and Peter says, The Spirit of Christ in them did signify the suffering he was to endure, and the glory which should follow. The same God who spake to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son. The whole fullness of the eternal Godhead being identified with and comprehended in Christ, the revelations of the Son are essentially the same, as to their emanation, as those which were made by the prophets. That is, they all came from God. But the apostle shows that there is a peculiar dignity attached to the communications made to us by the Son of God, on account of the superior greatness of the Son. The wide disparity between the prophets, or even the angels of God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, is clearly set forth as a reason why we should give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard from him, than to the words spoken by angels, &c. Christ, who is absolutely God, as well as man, and Mediator between God and men, is worthy of more profound reverence, when speaking to us personally, than the angels, or prophets, by whose mouths God has been pleased to speak to the fathers.
In setting forth more clearly the supreme glory of the Mediatorial office of the Son of God, among other strong arguments, allusion is made to Adam, as the figure of him that was to come. Particularly in that dignity which the Creator bestowed on Adam, in setting him over the works of his hands, giving him dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the deep. In all this Adam was crowned with glory and honor, as the type of Christ. But man this being in honor, did not therein abide, and we see not all things put under him. But while we may now look in vain for that honor of Adam’s primeval state, we are in the gospel presented with the glorious antitype, in whom all that was said of Adam’s dignity is fully realized in its spiritual and prophetic allusion to the second Adam, which is the Lord from heaven.
"But we see Jesus." Who sees him? Not everybody; for this epistle was not written to everybody. It is addressed to "Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling," &c. None can see Jesus, especially in his exaltation and crowned with power and glory, unless they are taught of God. Paul says, When it pleased God, &c., to reveal his Son in me. Again, God who commanded the light out shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. John says, He was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. These are the only descriptions of characters to whom the address is made, or to whom these words apply.
"Who was made a little lower than the angels." Those unto whom a revelation of Christ is made, have a view of him in his glory, and in his humiliation. He is revealed to their faith as the Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace, and to them he is also made known as the man of sorrows, who was acquainted with grief. They see him, according to chapter first, and verse third, as the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person; as the Word that was with God, and the Word that was God. They see him made a little lower than the angels, by his incarnation; for the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He whose glory had filled the heavens from everlasting, was made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. "He took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham." And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
But why this humiliation?
"For the suffering of death." The assumption of the nature of angels would not have brought him under the law that his people had transgressed; it was necessary that he should take part of the same flesh and blood, in which his children had transgressed the law, that he might be legally identified with them in their law state. Hence it is written, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death," &c. As the great object of his incarnation was to redeem his people, by doing and suffering all that the law required; he was made lower than the angels. This by no means implies that the glory of his eternal Deity, or his ancient Mediatorial glory, which he had with the Father before the world began, had depreciated in the smallest degree; for though in his humiliation he was found in fashion as a man, and humbled himself and learned obedience, and became obedient even unto death, and that the ignominious death of the cross, was made sin for us who knew no sin, and was even made a curse for us. As it is written, "Cursed in every one that hangeth upon a tree"; yet at the same time he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, and was acknowledged by the Father in that equality, even in issuing his death-warrant, if so we may speak, "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts." While hanging on his cross, all heaven glowed with the radiance of his unfading glory.
"Crowned with glory and honor." In his incarnation he was recognized by the law, by divine justice, by the eternal Father, and by all the shining hosts of heaven, as the Son of God. The darkened skies, the quaking earth, the rending rocks, the opening graves and the raising dead, together with the sundered veil of the temple, proclaimed in the most emphatic language, This was the Son of God! He was crowned as the antitype of Adam, with glory and honor; for all power in heaven and in earth was vested in him; and by virtue of his coronation, he hath power to lay down his life, and to take it up again. But in his suffering of death he is crowned with the glory and honor of complete success; the full accomplishment of all that was designed to be affected, his people completely redeemed, and by his one suffering perfected forever. A deathless victory was achieved over sin, death and hell, and all his enemies were vanquished forever.
"That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." It was only by the grace of God that a vicarious sacrifice could be admitted for the redemption of the people of God; that grace had reigned in righteousness in the counsel of eternity; in the election of grace; in the predestination of his members to salvation through him; in the love which the Father has bestowed on them, that hey should be called the sons of God, and heirs of immortality. Not by the merits or the works of men, but by the Grace of God, did he taste death for every man. That is, as explained in the next verse, "For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons into glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." To him was committed the work of redeeming many sons, and of bringing them to glory. In order to accomplish this he must of necessity taste death for them all. If one of them had been missed, and left to work his way from under the guilt of sin and the curse of the law, to glory, that one would have been lost forever, and the family of God could never have been complete. But it was the will of the Father, That of all he had given him, he should lose nothing, but raise them up at the last day; and it was the will of the Son, That all that the Father had given him should be with him, and see his glory, which he had with the Father before the world began.
Middletown, N.Y., Jan. 1, 1855 Elder Gilbert Beebe

A BAD SPIRIT

2005-11-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

A BAD SPIRIT.
NEW VERNON, N. Y.December 10, 1834.

A worthy correspondent of ours in New Jersey, reiterated the language of thousands when he informed us that the doctrine advocated in our paper was substantially the truth of the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ; and the systems which we oppose were and are anti-christian; but still, he regretted to add, ‘the spirit of the paper was bad.’ This gentle rebuke, so far from breaking our bones, has proved to us an excellent oil, inasmuch as it has led us in the serious, and we trust, prayerful contemplation of the subject, to search the statute book of our King, for a rule by which to try the spirits; for if we are found propagating truth through a bad spirit, we must of necessity be classed with those who “hold the truth in unrighteousness.” Truly, this appears to us a fearful subject; especially when we consider our own natural propensity to err, the inbred corruption of our nature, lest we should ourself prove a cast-away. Therefore with watchfulness and prayerfulness, we request our readers, as a party concerned, to follow us in the investigation of this important subject.
The good book informs us, 1 John, iv, that there are a plurality of spirits, and that these spirits are not all good; hence the inspired apostle exhorts his brethren to “try the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out in the world.” Lest we should try them by such standards as, “I feel, I think, and I believe,” which, to say the least, are but very imperfect rules, he has given the following infallible criterion, which must hold good until our divine Legislator shall come again without sin unto salvation. viz: “Hereby know we the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that spirit of anti-christ, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already it is in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world; therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God. He that knoweth God heareth us. He that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the Spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.”
By this divine rule, we arrive at the unavoidable conclusion, that there are but two classes of religious spirits in the world. The one is emphatically called the Spirit of truth; “Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.” - John xiv. 17. The other is the spirit of error. - 1 John iv. 6. And this is the spirit of anti-christ. - Verse 3. “A lying spirit,” &c. - 1 Kings xxii. 22, 23, and 2 Chron. xviii. 21, 22. We are informed by our Lord Jesus Christ, Matt. vii. 18, “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit;” and this text is applied by the Master to the very point now under consideration. Again, Luke vi. 43-45, “For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit; for every tree is known by its own fruit: for of thorns men do not gather figs; nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things.”
From these scriptures, it is plain that our paper cannot be filled up with the truth of the everlasting gospel, and yet be the product of a bad spirit. If then, our paper breathes a bad spirit, it is anti-christian; and consequently its spirit is the spirit of falsehood; and if such be the case, it cannot utter the truth as it is in Jesus, but must produce fruit which is of the nature of the tree. Hence the statement of our correspondent is evidently incorrect.
We would not be understood to contend that our periodical is free from imperfection; it does not pretend to be; nor do we ourself feel at liberty to look for absolute perfection in any uninspired writing; yet our aim and design is to publish nothing but truth in the name of the Lord, for the edification of his flock, and for the exposing of error by the light of truth. We do consider the fact somewhat remarkable, that among the numerous objections urged against the “Signs of the Times,” by our opponents, no one has attempted to prove by the word of God that our doctrinal views were anti-scriptural; our most inveterate foes have generally been content to say, “The doctrine is good, but the spirit of the paper is bad.” We can refer probably to several hundred instances where this sentence has been repeated by the enemies of this paper. If we are indeed advocating a bad cause, we would wish to desist; but upon what are we to conclude? Our enemies tell us that our doctrine is true; our experience tells us it is true; and our bible assures us that it is true. If in the agreement of so much testimony our cause is established, why are we charged with having a devil, or of being under the influence of a bad spirit, since by the fruit the tree is known? But, say our opponents, you are too censorious, too uncharitable; you denounce as antichristian, and as of the devil, many things which are highly esteemed among men; such, for instance, as Baptist Theological and Sunday Schools, Missionary and Tract Societies, protracted meetings, anxious benches, &c., merely because they do not accord with your own narrow contracted views. Just so. But if, as our enemies say, we advocate truth, all that stands in opposition to our cause is error. We therefore plead justification; for no lie is of the truth, but is and must be of anti-christ; and it is our business to expose it and oppose it with all our might.
But again, we enquire, is it not possible that we may be under the influence of the Spirit of truth, and yet be rejected, reviled and persecuted, as possessing a bad spirit? Again we take our reader back to the bible on this point; and here we learn that our divine Lord and Master was accused in a similar manner; when after the most scrutinizing search into his life, conversation, miracles and doctrine, they could “find no fault in this just man,” - which is not our case - yet because he did not join their Temperance Society, they called him a wine-bibber; because he did not eat as did the Pharisees, they called him a gluttonous man; because he joined not in their society, but chose poor ransomed sinners as his associates, they called him a friend or publicans and sinners; and because he reproved them, they said he had a bad spirit, a devil; because he promulgated the doctrine of the everlasting gospel, they called him a blasphemer; and because he rejected the Jewish Church and State religion, and forbade any amalgamation of his kingdom with the political legislation of nations, they nailed him to a tree, and pierced his heart with a spear. Christian readers, were these things so? The Son of God declares, “If they have done these things in the green tree, they will repeat them in the dry;” and if they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, a bad spirit, they will much more them of his household. Search the subsequent history of the church of God, the ground and pillar of the truth. Begin with John the Baptist; they said he had a devil, a bad spirit; his head was carried from the prison in a charger, leaving his body behind. Peter and John were unlearned men; much learning had made Paul mad. They were whipped, imprisoned, and finally slaughtered. Stephen: on a charge of blasphemy went to heaven amidst a shower of stones. John, for not uniting with the world, when boiling oil could not execute the hellish purpose of his enraged foes, was banished to the Isle of Patmos. The crimson track of slaughtered thousands of the dear disciples of the Lamb, both under the Papal and Pagan government of ancient Rome, Papal Europe, and Protestant America responds to the declaration of the Great High Priest of our profession, “They have done these things in the dry tree.” But did we mention America? Yes: verily the non-conformists of New England, as well as the Waldenses of the valleys of Piedmont, on the charge of having a bad spirit, have stained the earth with their hearts’ blood, which they deemed less precious than the cause for which they contended, and in which they dared to die. The voice in which our martyred brethren’s blood cryeth to heaven in testimony on this subject, mingling with the expressions of the souls mentioned in the apocalypse, lying under the alter, crying continually, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth.”
But it is objected again, that the “Signs of the Times” make divisions, and that too among the Baptists, therefore the spirit of the paper must be bad.
To meet this question, we would enquire, If the tendency of the “Signs of the Times” to divide the Baptists is an argument that its spirit is bad, will not the same rule apply with equal force to the popular institutions of the day? Very few are so ignorant of the Baptist history as not to be aware, that from the abolition of church and state establishments in our States, until the rage of modern popular society frenzy commenced among them, the Baptists of America were the happiest people on the earth. But alas! they have gone down to Egypt for help; they have desired a king, that they may be like the nations (denominations) around them; and without pity for those who have chosen rather to remain on the old apostolic platform, have thrust with side and shoulders until they have carried their point, and have set up their idols on every high hill, and under every green tree, until Zion has been rent asunder, and the lame turned out of the way. If the argument is good, the conclusion is irresistible. The popular institutions of the present day among the Baptists are anti-christian, and ought to be opposed and exposed.
Again, was not the same objection raised against the gospel of our Lord when preached by himself and advocated by his inspired apostles? Jesus says, “Think not that I am come to send peace upon earth. I tell you nay. I am come to set a man at variance with his father,” &c. Of the apostles it was said, These that turn the world upside down have come hither also. And when they preached in truth and righteousness, sonic believed, and some believed not; hence there were divisions caused by the preaching of the gospel of Christ. Was the spirit of the gospel then a bad spirit because it made divisions? That the spirit of the truth contained in the “Signs of the Times” is a discriminating and a dividing spirit, we cheerfully admit; but that this spirit separates the lovers of bible truth and gospel simplicity, remains to be proved. The gospel will indeed separate the precious grain from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, or the nominal from the real children of God; while other doctrines, whether they be of men or devils, will have a tendency to scatter the people of God, and at the same time to intermingle the precious with the vile.
But it is urged again, The spirit of the paper must be bad, for it is opposed to the circulation of the bible. This we deny. This paper is not, neither has it ever been, opposed to the circulation of the bible; but it has constantly recommended that holy book as the only infallible rule of faith and practice to the saints of God.
But the, “Signs of the Times,” say they, is opposed to the circulation of tracts, and yet is itself only a volume of tracts; hence it acts inconsistently with its own peculiar sentiments, and must therefore be of a bad spirit. But, reader, this statement is not true; we wish the press to remain forever unshackled, and every individual of mankind the privilege of publishing and defending his sentiments upon his own responsibility; then truth will have an infinite advantage over error. But against Tract societies we have entered our solemn protest; because as God has authorized but one religious society on earth, under the present dispensation, the Tract Society is anti-christian.
Again, it is said our spirit is bad, and we oppose an educated ministry. This also we deny; we are neither opposed to an educated or an uneducated ministry, where either the one or the other are called of God to the work of preaching Christ and him crucified; but to the Baptist abomination called Theological Seminaries, or Colleges, to prepare young men to preach, we are decidedly opposed. We have given, and if spared, shall again give our reasons for such decided opposition.
But once more: It is said we are opposed to the general spread of the gospel; and if this charge is true, our spirit must be bad; but this charge our opponents have themselves refuted; for they admit that we publish the solid truth of the gospel, and that we manifest a zeal worthy of a better cause. The only grounds upon which we are charged as being anti-mission is, first, we refuse to be called the sons of Pharaoh’s daughter, by hiring ourself to their societies and traveling under their commissions; second, by refusing to give our money to support such as they send out to convert the heathen and evangelize the world; and third, because we disclaim all fellowship with their God-dishonoring and heaven-daring inventions; finally, they say we are enemies to temperance, because we refuse to countenance and join their Temperance Societies, and we must have a bad spirit. We hardly need deny this charge, and will only say, should we ever find that the religion of Jesus Christ which we profess, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, and the fear of God before our eyes, are not sufficient to deter christians from drunkenness, that a written pledge on paper, and an association with reformed drunkards would be a more effectual preventative, we may then, but not fill then, join your phalanx.
On the whole, notwithstanding we are reviled, and charged with having an evil spirit, yet we are disposed to go on, knowing that our labor is not in vain in the Lord. Brethren of the Old School, what say you?
Elder Gilbert Beebe,Editorials of Gilbert BeebeVolume 1, pages 184-191

ABSOLUTE PREDESTINAT

2005-11-20T12:37:00.000-08:00

ABSOLUTE PREDESTINATION

The Old School or Primitive Baptists in former years have been very definitely identified and distinguished from all other religious or ecclesiastical organizations as Predestinarian Baptists, and as such have borne reproach and vituperation from those who hold more limited views of what we regard as the absolute and all pervading government of God over all beings, all events, and all worlds...To us it has been a comforting thought that God has set the bounds of our habitation on the earth, and the number of our months is with Him, and our days are appointed to us as the days of an hireling, who cannot pass His bounds; but what assurance of safety would that afford, if He has left murderers and blood-thirsty men or devils unrestricted by His predestinating decree? To our mind, either everything or nothing must be held in subjection to the will and providence of God. Even the wickedness of ungodly men is restricted by predestination, so that "the wrath of man shall praise God, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain." - Elder Beebe

HOW CAN A JUST GOD

2005-11-11T10:04:00.000-08:00

HOW CAN A JUST GOD
JUSTIFY GUILTY MAN?
Rom. 3:26

C. H. Spurgeon

When I was under conviction of sin I had a clear and sharp sense of the justice of God. Sin, whatever it might be to other people, became to me an intolerable burden. It was not so much that I feared the wrath to come, but that I feared sin. I knew myself to be so horribly guilty that I remember feeling that if God did not punish me for sin, he ought to do so. I felt that the judge of all the earth ought to condemn such sin as mine. I sat on the judgment seat and I condemned myself to perish; for I confessed that, had I been God, I could have done no other than send such a guilty creature as I was down to the lowest hell. All the while, I had upon my mind a deep concern for the Honor of God's name and the integrity of His moral government. I felt that it would not satisfy my conscience if I could be forgiven unjustly. The sin that I had committed must be punished. But then there was the question how God could be just and yet justify me who had been so guilty. I asked my heart, "How can He be just and yet the Justifier?" (Rom. 3:26). I was worried and wearied with this question: neither could I see any answer to it. Certainly I could never have invented an answer which would have satisfied my conscience.
The doctrine of the atonement is to my mind one of the surest proofs of the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. Who would or could have thought of THE JUST RULER dying for the UNJUST REBEL? This is no teaching of human mythology or dream of poetical imagination. This method of expiation is only known among men because it is a fact. Fiction could not have devised it. God Himself ordained it. It is not a matter which could have been imagined.
I had heard the plan of salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus from my youth up, but I did not know any more about it in my innermost soul than if I had been born and bred a Hottentot. It came to me as a new revelation, as fresh as if I had never read the scripture, that Jesus was declared to be "the propitiation for our sins" (I John 2:2), that God might be just.
When I was anxious about the possibility of a just God pardoning me, I understood and saw by faith that He who is the Son of God became man and, in His own blessed person, bore my sin in His own body on the tree. I saw the chastisement of my peace was laid upon Him, and that with His stripes I was healed (Isa. 55:5). HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THAT? Have you ever understood how God can be just to the full, not remitting penalty nor blunting the edge of the sword, and yet can be infinitely merciful and can justify the ungodly who turn to Him? It was because the Son of God, supremely glorious in His matchless person, undertook to vindicate the law, by bearing the sentence due me, that therefore God is able to pass by my sin. The law of God was more vindicated by the death of Christ than it would have been had all transgressions been punished forever. For the Son of God to suffer for sin was a more glorious establishment of the government of God than for the whole race to suffer.
JESUS HAS BORNE THE DEATH PENALTY ON OUR BEHALF! Behold the wonder! There He hangs upon the cross! This is the greatest sight that you will ever see: Son of God and Son of man! There He hangs, bearing pains unutterable—the Just for the unjust—that He might bring us to God. Oh, the glory of that sight! The Innocent, suffering! The Holy One, condemned! The Everblessed, made a curse! The Infinitely Glorious, put to a shameful death! The more I look at the sufferings of the Son of God, the more sure I am that they must meet my case. Why did He suffer, if not to turn aside the penalty from us? If, then, He turned it aside by His death, it is turned aside, and those who believe in Him need not fear it. It must be so that, since expiation is made, God is able to forgive without shaking the basis of His throne or in the least degree blotting the statute book. Conscience gets a full answer to her tremendous question. The wrath of God against iniquity, whatever that may be, must be beyond all conception terrible. Well did Moses say, "Who knoweth the power of thine anger!" (Psalm. 90:11). Yet, when we hear the Lord of Glory cry, "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1), and see Him yielding up the ghost, we feel that the justice of God has received abundant vindication by obedience so perfect and death so terrible, rendered by so divine a person. If God Himself bows before His own law, what more can be done? There is more in the atonement by way of merit than there is in all human sin by way of demerit. The great gulf of Jesus' loving self-sacrifice can swallow up the mountains of our sin, all of them. For the sake of the infinite good of this one representative Man, the Lord may well look with favor upon other men, however unworthy they may be in and of themselves. It was a miracle of miracles that the Lord Jesus Christ should stand in our stead and "bear, that we might never bear, His Father's righteous are." But He has done so. "It is finished" (John 19:30). God will save the sinner because He did not spare His Son. God can pass by your transgressions because He laid those transgressings upon His only begotten Son.
WHAT IS IT TO BELIEVE IN HIM? It is not merely to say, "He is God and the Saviour," but to trust Him wholly and entirely, and take Him for all your salvation from this time forth and forever—your Lord, your Master, your All. If you will have the Lord Jesus, He has you already. If you believe on Him, I tell you, you cannot go to Hell, for that were to make the perfect sacrifice of Christ to none effect. If the Lord Jesus Christ died in my stead, why should I die also? Every believer by faith has laid his hands on the sacrifice, and made it his own, and therefore may rest assured that he can never perish. The Lord would not receive this offering on our behalf and then condemn us to die. The Lord cannot read our pardon written in the blood of His own Son and then smite us. That were impossible. Oh, that you may have Grace given you at once to look away to Jesus, Who is the fountainhead of mercy to guilty man! Will you come into this lifeboat just as you are? Here is safety from the wreck. Accept the sure deliverance. Leap for it just as you are, and leap now!
I will tell you this thing about myself to encourage you. My sole hope for heaven lies in the full atonement made upon Calvary's cross for the ungodly. On that I firmly rely. I have not the shadow of a hope anywhere else. You are in the same condition as I am; for we, neither of us, have anything of our own worth thinking of as a ground of trust. Let us join hands and stand together at the foot of the cross and trust our souls once for all to Him Who shed His blood for the guilty. We will be saved by one and the same Saviour. If you perish trusting Him, I must perish too. What can I do more to prove my own confidence in the Gospel which I set before you?

A Defence of Calvini

2005-11-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

A Defence of Calvinism

by C. H. Spurgeon

The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again.
It is a great thing to begin the Christian life by believing good solid doctrine. Some people have received twenty different "gospels" in as many years; how many more they will accept before they get to their journey's end, it would be difficult to predict. I thank God that He early taught me the gospel, and I have been so perfectly satisfied with it, that I do not want to know any other. Constant change of creed is sure loss. If a tree has to be taken up two or three times a year, you will not need to build a very large loft in which to store the apples. When people are always shifting their doctrinal principles, they are not likely to bring forth much fruit to the glory of God. It is good for young believers to begin with a firm hold upon those great fundamental doctrines which the Lord has taught in His Word. Why, if I believed what some preach about the temporary, trumpery salvation which only lasts for a time, I would scarcely be at all grateful for it; but when I know that those whom God saves He saves with an everlasting salvation, when I know that He gives to them an everlasting righteousness, when I know that He settles them on an everlasting foundation of everlasting love, and that He will bring them to His everlasting kingdom, oh, then I do wonder, and I am astonished that such a blessing as this should ever have been given to me!
"Pause, my soul! adore, and wonder!
Ask, 'Oh, why such love to me?'
Grace hath put me in the number
Of the Saviour's family:
Hallelujah!
Thanks, eternal thanks, to Thee!
I suppose there are some persons whose minds naturally incline towards the doctrine of free-will. I can only say that mine inclines as naturally towards the doctrines of sovereign grace. Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude that God has never let me act as they have done! I have thought, if God had left me alone, and had not touched me by His grace, what a great sinner I should have been! I should have run to the utmost lengths of sin, dived into the very depths of evil, nor should I have stopped at any vice or folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that I should have been a very king of sinners, if God had let me alone. I cannot understand the reason why I am saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot, if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a partaker of Divine grace. If I am not at this moment without Christ, it is only because Christ Jesus would have His will with me, and that will was that I should be with Him where He is, and should share His glory. I can put the crown nowhere but upon the head of Him whose mighty grace has saved me from going down into the pit. Looking back on my past life, I can see that the dawning of it all was of God; of God effectively. I took no torch with which to light the sun, but the sun enlightened me. I did not commence my spiritual life-no, I rather kicked, and struggled against the things of the Spirit: when He drew me, for a time I did not run after Him: there was a natural hatred in my soul of everything holy and good.
Wooings were lost upon me-warnings were cast to the wind- thunders were despised; and as for the whispers of His love, they were rejected as being less than nothing and vanity. But, sure I am, I can say now, speaking on behalf of myself, "He only is my salvation." It was He who turned my heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him. I can in very deed, say with Doddridge and Toplady-
"Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made my eyes o'erflow."
and coming to this moment, I can add-
"Tis grace has kept me to this day,
And will not let me go."
Well can I remember the manner in which I learned the doctrines of grace in a single instant. Born, as all of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did not see the grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul-when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a man-that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God. One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment- I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, "I ascribe my change wholly to God."
I once attended a service where the text happened to be, "He shall choose our inheritance for us;" and the good man who occupied the pulpit was more than a little of an Arminian. Therefore, when he commenced, he said, "This passage refers entirely to our temporal inheritance, it has nothing whatever to do with our everlasting destiny, for," said he, "we do not want Christ to choose for us in the matter of Heaven or hell. It is so plain and easy, that every man who has a grain of common sense will choose Heaven, and any person would know better than to choose hell. We have no need of any superior intelligence, or any greater Being, to choose Heaven or hell for us. It is left to our own free- will, and we have enough wisdom given us, sufficiently correct means to judge for ourselves," and therefore, as he very logically inferred, there was no necessity for Jesus Christ, or anyone, to make a choice for us. We could choose the inheritance for ourselves without any assistance. "Ah!" I thought, "but, my good brother, it may be very true that we could, but I think we should want something more than common sense before we should choose aright."
First, let me ask, must we not all of us admit an over-ruling Providence, and the appointment of Jehovah's hand, as to the means whereby we came into this world? Those men who think that, afterwards, we are left to our own free-will to choose this one or the other to direct our steps, must admit that our entrance into the world was not of our own will, but that God had then to choose for us. What circumstances were those in our power which led us to elect certain persons to be our parents? Had we anything to do with it? Did not God Himself appoint our parents, native place, and friends? Could He not have caused me to be born with the skin of the Hottentot, brought forth by a filthy mother who would nurse me in her "kraal," and teach me to bow down to Pagan gods, quite as easily as to have given me a pious mother, who would each morning and night bend her knee in prayer on my behalf? Or, might He not, if He had pleased have given me some profligate to have been my parent, from whose lips I might have early heard fearful, filthy, and obscene language? Might He not have placed me where I should have had a drunken father, who would have immured me in a very dungeon of ignorance, and brought me up in the chains of crime? Was it not God's Providence that I had so happy a lot, that both my parents were His children, and endeavoured to train me up in the fear of the Lord?
John Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it, too, of a good woman who said, in order to prove the doctrine of election, "Ah! sir, the Lord must have loved me before I was born, or else He would not have seen anything in me to love afterwards." I am sure it is true in my case; I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love. So I am forced to accept that great Biblical doctrine. I recollect an Arminian brother telling me that he had read the Scriptures through a score or more times, and could never find the doctrine of election in them. He added that he was sure he would have done so if it had been there, for he read the Word on his knees. I said to him, "I think you read the Bible in a very uncomfortable posture, and if you had read it in your easy chair, you would have been more likely to understand it. Pray, by all means, and the more, the better, but it is a piece of superstition to think there is anything in the posture in which a man puts himself for reading: and as to reading through the Bible twenty times without having found anything about the doctrine of election, the wonder is that you found anything at all: you must have galloped through it at such a rate that you were not likely to have any intelligible idea of the meaning of the Scriptures."
If it would be marvelous to see one river leap up from the earth full-grown, what would it be to gaze upon a vast spring from which all the rivers of the earth should at once come bubbling up, a million of them born at a birth? What a vision would it be! Who can conceive it. And yet the love of God is that fountain, from which all the rivers of mercy, which have ever gladdened our race-all the rivers of grace in time, and of glory hereafter-take their rise. My soul, stand thou at that sacred fountain-head, and adore and magnify, for ever and ever, God, even our Father, who hath loved us! In the very beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in the acorn cup; long ere the echoes awoke the solitudes; before the mountains were brought forth; and long ere the light flashed through the sky, God loved His chosen creatures. Before there was any created being-when the ether was not fanned by an angel's wing, when space itself had not an existence, when there was nothing save God alone-even then, in that loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and profundity, His bowels moved with love for His chosen. Their names were written on His heart, and then were they dear to His soul. Jesus loved His people before the foundation of the world-even from eternity! and when He called me by His grace, He said to me, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."
Then, in the fulness of time, He purchased me with His blood;
He let His heart run out in one deep gaping wound for me long ere I loved Him. Yea, when He first came to me, did I not spurn Him? When He knocked at the door, and asked for entrance, did I not drive Him away, and do despite to Ms grace? Ah, I can remember that I full often did so until, at last, by the power of His effectual grace, He said, "I must, I will come in;" and then He turned my heart, and made me love Him. But even till now I should have resisted Him, had it not been for His grace. Well, then since He purchased me when I was dead in sins, does it not follow, as a consequence necessary and logical, that He must have loved me first? Did my Saviour die for me because I believed on Him? No;
I was not then in existence; I had then no being. Could the Saviour, therefore, have died because I had faith, when I myself was not yet born? Could that have been possible? Could that have been the origin of the Saviour's love towards me? Oh! no; my Saviour died for me long before I believed. "But," says someone, "He foresaw that you would have faith; and, therefore, He loved you." What did He foresee about my faith? Did He foresee that I should get that faith myself, and that I should believe on Him of myself) No;
Christ could not foresee that, because no Christian man will ever say that faith came of itself without the gift and without the working of the Holy Spirit. I have met with a great many believers, and talked with them about this matter; but I never knew one who could put his hand on his heart, and say, "I believed in Jesus without the assistance of the Holy Spirit."
I am bound to the doctrine of the depravity of the human heart, because I find myself depraved in heart, and have daily proofs that in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing. If God enters into covenant with unfallen man, man is so insignificant a creature that it must be an act of gracious condescension on the Lord's part; but if God enters into covenant with sinful man, he is then so offensive a creature that it must be, on God's part, an act of pure, free, rich, sovereign grace. When the Lord entered into covenant with me, I am sure that it was all of grace, nothing else but grace. When I remember what a den of unclean beasts and birds my heart was, and how strong was my unrenewed will, how obstinate and rebellious against the sovereignty of the Divine rule, I always feel inclined to take the very lowest room in my Father's house, and when I enter Heaven, it will be to go among the less than the least of all saints, and with the chief of sinners.
The late lamented Mr. Denham has put, at the foot of his portrait, a most admirable text, "Salvation is of the Lord." That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation." What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ-the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own Private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.
"If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away,
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall a thousand times a day"
If one dear saint of God had perished, so might all; if one of the covenant ones be lost, so may all be; and then there is no gospel promise true, but the Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance. I will be an infidel at once when I can believe that a saint of God can ever fall finally. If God hath loved me once, then He will love me for ever. God has a mastermind; He arranged everything in His gigantic intellect long before He did it; and once having settled it, He never alters it, 'This shall be done," saith He, and the iron hand of destiny marks it down, and it is brought to pass. "This is My purpose," and it stands, nor can earth or hell alter it. "This is My decree," saith He, "promulgate it, ye holy angels; rend it down from the gate of Heaven, ye devils, if ye can; but ye cannot alter the decree, it shall stand for ever." God altereth not His plans; why should He? He is Almighty, and therefore can perform His pleasure. Why should He? He is the All-wise, and therefore cannot have planned wrongly. Why should He? He is the everlasting God, and therefore cannot die before His plan is accomplished. Why should He change? Ye worthless atoms of earth, ephemera of a day, ye creeping insects upon this bay-leaf of existence, ye may change your plans, but He shall never, never change His. Has He told me that His plan is to save me? If so, I am for ever safe.
"My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impress'd on His heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace."
I do not know how some people, whobelieve that a Christian can fall from grace, manage to be happy. It must be a very commendable thing in them to be able to get through a day without despair. f I did not believe the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men the most miserable, because I should lack any ground of comfort. I could not say, whatever state of heart I came into, that I should be like a well- spring of water, whose stream fails not; I should rather have to take the comparison of an intermittent spring, that might stop on a sudden, or a reservoir, which I had no reason to expect would always be full. I believe that the happiest of Christians and the truest of Christians are those who never dare to doubt God, but who take His Word simply as it stands, and believe it, and ask no questions, just feeling assured that if God has said it, it will be so.
I bear my willing testimony that I have no reason, nor even the shadow of a reason, to doubt my Lord, and I challenge Heaven, and earth, and hell, to bring any proof that God is untrue. From the depths of hell I call the fiends, and from this earth I call the tried and afflicted believers, and to Heaven I appeal, and challenge the long experience of the blood-washed host, and there is not to be found in the three realms a single person who can bear witness to one fact which can disprove the faithfulness of God, or weaken Ms claim to be trusted by His servants. There are many things that may or may not happen, but this I know shall happen-
"He shall present my soul,
Unblemish'd and complete,
Before the glory of His face,
With joys divinely great"
All the purposes of man have been defeated, but not the purposes of God. The promises of man may be broken-many of them are made to be broken-but the promises of God shall all be fulfilled. He is a promise-maker, but He never was a promise- breaker; He is a promise-keeping God, and every one of His people shall prove it to be so. This is my grateful, personal confidence, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me"-unworthy me, lost and ruined me. He will yet save me; and-
"I, among the blood-wash'd throng,
Shall wave the palm, and wear the crown,
And shout loud victory"
I go to a land which the plough of earth hath never upturned, where it is greener than earth's best pastures, and richer than her most abundant harvests ever saw. I go to a building of more gorgeous architecture than man hath ever builded; it is not of mortal design; it is "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens." All I shall know and enjoy in Heaven, will be given to me by the Lord, and I shall say, when at last I appear before Him-
"Grace all the work shall crown
Through everlasting days;
It lays in Heaven the topmost stone,
And well deserves the praise"
I know there are some who think it necessary to their system of theology to limit the merit of the blood of Jesus: if my theological system needed such a limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, I dare not allow the thought to find a lodging in my mind, it seems so near akin to blasphemy. In Christ's finished work I see an ocean of merit; my plummet finds no bottom, my eye discovers no shore. There must be sufficient efficacy in the blood of Christ, if God had so willed it, to have saved not only all in this world, but all in ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed their Maker's law. Once admit infinity into the matter, and limit is out of the question. Having a Divine Person for an offering, it is not consistent to conceive of limited value; bound and measure are terms inapplicable to the Divine sacrifice. The intent of the Divine purpose fixes the application of the infinite offering, but does not change it into a finite work. Think of the numbers upon whom God has bestowed His grace already. Think of the countless hosts in Heaven: if thou wert introduced there to-day, thou wouldst find it as easy to tell the stars, or the sands of the sea, as to count the multitudes that are before the throne even now. They have come from the East, and from the West, from the North, and from the South, and they are sitting down with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob in the Kingdom of God; and beside those in Heaven, think of the saved ones on earth. Blessed be God, His elect on earth are to be counted by millions, I believe, and the days are coming, brighter days than these, when there shall be multitudes upon multitudes brought to know the Saviour, and to rejoice in Him. The Father's love is not for a few only, but for an exceeding great company. "A great multitude, which no man could number," will be found in Heaven. A man can reckon up to very high figures; set to work your Newtons, your mightiest calculators, and they can count great numbers, but God and God alone can tell the multitude of His redeemed. I believe there will be more in Heaven than in hell. If anyone asks me why I think so, I answer, because Christ, in everything, is to "have the pre-eminence," and I cannot conceive how He could have the pre-eminence if there are to be more in the dominions of Satan than in Paradise. Moreover, I have never read that there is to be in hell a great multitude, which no man could number. I rejoice to know that the souls of all infants, as soon as they die, speed their way to Paradise. Think what a multitude there is of them! Then there are already in Heaven unnumbered myriads of the spirits of just men made perfect-the redeemed of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues up till now; and there are better times coming, when the religion of Christ shall be universal; when-
"He shall reign from pole to pole,
With illimitable sway,"
when whole kingdoms shall bow down before Him, and nations shall be born in a day, and in the thousand years of the great millennial state there will be enough saved to make up all the deficiencies of the thousands of years that have gone before. Christ shall be Master everywhere, and His praise shall be sounded in every land. Christ shall have the pre-eminence at last; His train shall be far larger than that which shall attend the chariot of the grim monarch of hell.
Some persons love the doctrine of universal atonement because they say, "It is so beautiful. It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for all men; it commends itself," they say, "to the instincts of humanity; there is something in it full of joy and beauty." I admit there is, but beauty may be often associated with falsehood. There is much which I might admire in the theory of universal redemption, but I will just show what the supposition necessarily involves. If Christ on His cross intended to save every man, then He intended to save those who were lost before He died. If the doctrine be true, that He died for all men, then He died for some who were in hell before He came into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there who had been cast away because of their sins. Once again, if it was Christ's intention to save all men, how deplorably has He been disappointed, for we have His own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with His blood. That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption. To think that my Saviour died for men who were or are in hell, seems a supposition too horrible for me to entertain. To imagine for a moment that He was the Substitute for all the sons of men, and that God, having first punished the Substitute, afterwards punished the sinners themselves, seems to conflict with all my ideas of Divine justice. That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction for the sins of all men, and that afterwards some of those very men should be punished for the sins for which Christ had already atoned, appears to me to be the most monstrous iniquity that could ever have been imputed to Saturn, to Janus, to the goddess of the Thugs, or to the most diabolical heathen deities. God forbid that we should ever think thus of Jehovah, the just and wise and good! There is no soul living who holds more firmly to the doctrines of grace than I do, and if any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a Calvinist, I answer- I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me, do I hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply, I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it. But far be it from me even to imagine that Zion contains none but Calvinistic Christians within her walls, or that there are none saved who do not hold our views. Most atrocious things have been spoken about the character and spiritual condition of John Wesley, the modern prince of Arminians. I can only say concerning him that, while I detest many of the doctrines which he preached, yet for the man himself I have a reverence second to no Wesleyan; and if there were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than George Whitefield and John Wesley. The character of John Wesley stands beyond all imputation for self-sacrifice, zeal, holiness, and communion with God; he lived far above the ordinary level of common Christians, and was one "of whom the world was not worthy." I believe there are multitudes of men who cannot see these truths, or, at least, cannot see them in the way in which we put them, who nevertheless have received Christ as their Saviour, and are as dear to the heart of the God of grace as the soundest Calvinist in or out of Heaven.
I do not think I differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what I do believe, but I differ from them in what they do not believe. I do not hold any less than they do, but I hold a little more, and, I think, a little more of the truth revealed in the Scriptures. Not only are there a few cardinal doctrines, by which we can steer our ship North, South, East, or West, but as we study the Word, we shall begin to learn something about the North-west and North-east, and all else that lies between the four cardinal points. The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two; and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once. For instance, I read in one Book of the Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Yet I am taught, in another part of the same inspired Word, that "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." I see, in one place, God in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to his own free-will. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there was no control of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I should declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not free enough to be responsible, I should be driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is foreordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring.
It is often said that the doctrines we believe have a tendency to lead us to sin. I have heard it asserted most positively, that those high doctrines which we love, and which we find in the Scriptures, are licentious ones. I do not know who will have the hardihood to make that assertion, when they consider that the holiest of men have been believers in them. I ask the man who dares to say that Calvinism is a licentious religion, what he thinks of the character of Augustine, or Calvin, or Whitefield, who in successive ages were the great exponents of the system of grace; or what will he say of the Puritans, whose works are full of them? Had a man been an Arminian in those days, he would have been accounted the vilest heretic breathing, but now we are looked upon as the heretics, and they as the orthodox. We have gone back to the old school; we can trace our descent from the apostles. It is that vein of free-grace, running through the sermonizing of Baptists, which has saved us as a denomination. Were it not for that, we should not stand where we are today. We can run a golden line up to Jesus Christ Himself, through a holy succession of mighty fathers, who all held these glorious truths; and we can ask concerning them, "Where will you find holier and better men in the world?" No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who have called it "a licentious doctrine" did not know anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own vile stuff was the most licentious doctrine under Heaven. If they knew the grace of God in truth, they would soon see that there was no preservative from lying like a knowledge that we are elect of God from the foundation of the world. There is nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and the immutability of my Father's affection, which can keep me near to Him from a motive of simple gratitude. Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth. A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe the one thing naturally begets the other. Of all men, those have the most disinterested piety, the sublimest reverence, the most ardent devotion, who believe that they are saved by grace, without works, through faith, and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Christians should take heed, and see that it always is so, lest by any means Christ should be crucified afresh, and put to an open shame.

IF SOME ARE ELECT WH

2005-11-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

IF SOME ARE ELECT WHY PREACH?
By C. H. SPURGEON

Text ------ John 17:20
"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word."

Captious and cavilling persons will object, "You say that God loves His people, and therefore they will be saved; then what is the good of preaching?" What is the good of preaching? When I say that God loves a multitude that no man can number, a countless host of the race of men, do you ask me what is the good Of preaching?
What is the good of preaching? To fetch these diamonds of the Lord out of the dunghill; to go down to the depths, as the diver does, to fetch up God's pearls from the place where they are.
What is the good of preaching? To cut down the good corn, and gather it into the garner.
What is the good of preaching? To fetch out God's elect from the ruins of the fall, and make them stand on the rock Christ Jesus, and see their standing sure.
Ah, ye who ask what is the good of preaching, because God has ordained some to salvation, we ask you whether it would not be a most foolish thing to say, because there is to be a harvest, what is the good of sowing? There is to be a harvest, what is the use of reaping? The very reason why we do sow and reap is, because we feel assured that there is to be a harvest.
And if, indeed, I believed there was not a number who must be saved, I could not go into a pulpit again. Only once make me think that no one is certain to be saved and I do not care to preach. But now I know that a countless number must be saved; I am confident that Christ shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days. I know that, if there is much to dispirit me in my ministry, and I see but little of its effects, yet He shall keep all whom the Father has given to Him; and this makes me preach. I come into this chapel tonight with the assurance that God has some child of His, in this place, not yet called; and I feel confident that He will call someone by the use of the ministry, so why not by me? I know there are not a few souls whom God has given me through my ministry, not only hundreds, but thousands. I have seen some hundreds of those who profess to have been brought to God through my preaching at Park Street, and elsewhere; and with that confidence I must go on. I know that Jesus must have a seed. His people must increase, and it is the very purpose of the ministry to seek them out, and bring them into God's fold. Our Saviour tells us the use of the ministry is, that they may believe on me through their word.
There is one peculiarity about this. Christ says, They shall believe on me through their word. Have you never heard people call out about running after men? They say, "You are all running after such-and-such a man." What then, would you have them run after a woman? You say, "The people go after one particular man." Whom else shall they go after? Some persons say, "We went to such-and-such a place, and the people there love their minister too much." That would be very dreadful, but it is not so. As for ministers being in danger of being ruined by too much love in any particular place, they get too much of the reverse somewhere else. If we get a little sweet, somebody else is sure to put in much that is bitter. Is it not singular that Christ should say, They shall believe on me through their word?
Now, do God's people believe on Christ through the word of the ministry? We know that our faith does not rest on the word of man, but on the Word of God. We do not rest on any man, yet it is through their word; that is, through the word of the apostles, and through the word of every faithful minister.

Resisting the Devil

2005-11-11T07:40:00.000-08:00

Resisting the Devil
by Arthur W. Pink

"Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you"-James 4:7

HIS brings before us an aspect of the Truth concerning which many Christians are largely ignorant. Oftentimes they are unaware that it is "the Devil" who is attacking them and needs to be resisted. Many suppose that Satan's assaults are confined unto tempting us to sin. Not so; in many cases his object is to oppose and hinder us in the doing of that which is good. Frequently he makes use of human beings to annoy and harass us. For example, he will send a caller to the door, or someone to ring on the telephone, when we are engaged in prayer. He will move worldly relatives to visit us on the Sabbath-day and thus prevent our spending the time quietly with the Lord. Or, he will shape our "circumstances" to hinder our spiritual good, multiplying our duties and tasks so that we have not leisure or are too weary for study. Few of God's children appear to know that it is their privilege and right to be victorious over Satan's attacks. The Lord has not left His people here at the mercy of their great Enemy, helpless to overcome him. No, He has told us in His Word how we may defeat him.
To begin at the beginning: "Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you." This is a Divine command, it is a duty which the Lord has laid upon us. Our first responsibility concerning it is to give it our best attention, to fix it in our minds, to ponder its terms, to desire and determine to obey. Probably some will say, I wish that I could, but I know not how. Then our second responsibility concerning it is to acknowledge this, asking God to enlighten, begging Him to teach us how to obey it. Tell Him you want to do as He has bidden, and for Him to grant instruction and enablement thereunto.
Yet necessary and important as this is, it is not enough. Prayer was never designed by God to relieve us of our responsibilities and encourage laziness. It is not sufficient for me to pray that God will grant us a fruitful garden this summer-though I should pray about this, as about "everything": Philippians 4:6. No, I must dig and plant, water and weed it. So it is here: the answer to my prayer for enlightenment for heeding the exhortation of James 4:7 must come to me through the Scriptures. Hence, my third responsibility is to search the Scriptures, asking the Holy Spirit to graciously guide me into the Truth. This means that I must come to the Bible with a definite object, aiming to discover just what it teaches about the Christian's "resisting the Devil" so that he "flees" from him.
Let us begin our "search" of God's Word on this important practical subject by looking closely at the immediate context of the command found in our text. First, we note that it is found in the second half of the verse: "Submit yourselves therefore to God; resist the Devil." Ah, how can I expect to do the second until I have done the first? To "submit" myself unto God means that my own wisdom, will and wishes must be entirely set aside, and His Word and will rule me in all things. To submit to God means that I recognize His claims upon me, that I am His creature, His child, to be controlled by Him as One having absolute right to my complete subjection.
But let us look more closely at and ponder the first half of this verse: "Submit yourselves therefore to God." This at once tells me that I need to look back to the previous verse, for the word "therefore" always points to a conclusion based upon and drawn from something going before. Turning back, then, to verse 6, I read, "But He giveth more grace. Wherefore He saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." Ah, that is encouraging, that stimulates faith and hope. The One unto whom I am to "submit" myself is no harsh Tyrant, no merciless Despot, but the "God of all grace." He has already given me saving grace, and "He giveth more grace" to the humble, and "more grace" is exactly what I need, if I am to successfully "resist the Devil."
"Wherefore He saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." God resisteth the proud, because the proud resist Him. The essence of pride is self-sufficiency: it is that spirit which disdains help from another, confident that I am fully able to manage for myself. Spiritually, pride is that awful conceit that I can get along without God. It is a fearful delusion begotten and fostered by the Devil. Contrariwise, "humility" is a being emptied of self-sufficiency: it is the heart realization that I am completely dependent upon God for everything. Humility, grace, and victory over the Devil are inseparably connected! But nothing is more offensive to Satan than humility, for he is a proud spirit, and his desire is to puff us up and get us to walk and act independently of God.
"Submit yourselves therefore to God." The word "submit" signifies to place myself under another. There must be a subjection of the whole man to the whole law of God; a giving up of ourselves to be governed by Him; our thoughts, desires, actions regulated strictly by the rules laid down in His Word. Submission to God also denotes an unrepining acquiescence to the dispositions of His providence, an unmurmuring disposal of ourselves to His sovereign pleasure. Thus, there must be a complete surrender of myself and my life to God, to be ordered and disposed of by Him.
Now there is a double relation or connection between the two halves of James 4:7. First and most obviously, I must "submit" to God if ever I am to successfully "resist" the Devil. How can it be otherwise? I cannot prevail over the great Enemy in my own strength, and God will not give me of His "grace" while I am resisting Him! Thus, I must cease resisting God before I can hope to resist the Devil-chiefly to make me proud, self-sufficient, independent. The prayerless soul is a proud one, for his refusal to receive strength from God is tantamount to saying that he can get along through the day without Him. It was by pride Satan fell, and he would feign have more company, and draw us into his snare. His bait is easily swallowed, for it is natural to us. Our first parents caught readily at the suggestion "Ye shall be as gods."
But what is meant by "resist the Devil?" First, that I am not to be terrified at him. Satan has no enforcing power: he cannot prevail over me without my consent. Second, that I am not to even listen to his suggestion: "resist" actively, saying "I will not": take that attitude, and firmly stand your ground. Third, quote Scripture to him, a pertinent and suitable one which meets his particular suggestion. Count upon the power of God's Word, expect it to drive him away. Fourth, plead God's promise in the text: "resist the Devil and he will flee from you." Yes, he will "flee," for he is not only a conquered foe, but an arrant coward as well. "Flee from you," yet only, "for a season"; he will return and renew the fight; and so must you.
But let us now resume our searching of God's Word to find out what it has to teach us on this subject of resisting the Devil. We have already discovered enough to encourage us, so let us continue our quest for further light and help. This means that I must turn to a concordance and look up, slowly and carefully, every verse having in it the word "Devil" or "Satan." This calls for patience, but if it be prayerfully exercised, God will reward it. I come now to 1 Peter 5:8 and read, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour; whom resist, steadfast in the faith." Surely this is very graphic and impressive. If you knew that a lion had escaped from a local circus, that it was a fierce and hungry one, that it was loose and roaming the streets, and your daily duties obliged you to go abroad, how cautiously and carefully would you proceed! Ah, dear friends, my supposition is neither imaginary nor overdrawn. There is one, more powerful and cruel than any animal lion, which is abroad, seeking to devour your soul and mine. How little we really believe this! How halfhearted is the heed we give to this Divine warning!
Let us glance for a moment at the context of this verse: "Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you" (1 Peter 5:7). Here the tried and troubled children of God are invited to roll upon the Lord the whole burden of their anxiety, being assured of His compassion for them. Yes, but that privilege and assurance of His tender care must not tempt us to be careless and reckless. Here, as every where in Scripture, the promise and the command are joined together. Note what immediately follows. First, "Be sober." In common speech "soberness" is the opposite of drunkenness. But let us bear in mind that there are many other things besides wine and whiskey which intoxicate. "Be sober" means, Be temperate in all things, put a curb on your every desire and appetite, particularly be "sober" in your use of and expectations from the world.
"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3:2). If the eye of faith measures earthly things in the light of God's Word it will be seen that they are temporary, unsatisfying, worthless. The pleasures of sin are only "for a season" (Hebrews 11:25), and a brief one at that! Remember too there must be "soberness" of mind, before there will be soberness of body. O the importance of forming right estimates of earthly and heavenly things. If I truly receive into my heart the declaration of God's Word that "all under the sun" is but "vanity and vexation of spirit," soberness will indeed be promoted.
Second, "be vigilant," not careless, nor rash and presumptuous. I must be watchful, alert, wideawake. Here again I must start with the inner man: I shall never be "vigilant" about external temptations till I have learned to "gird up the loins" of my mind (1 Peter 1:13), and to "rule my own spirit" (Proverbs 16:32). Let us then seek grace to be "vigilant" over our minds and bring "into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). Let us seek to be "vigilant" over our moods, watchful lest Satan should gain an advantage. If depressed, he will seek and tempt me to despondency and despair. But I must "resist" that inclination. If light and giddy, he will tempt to fleshly mirth and hilarity, which ill-becomes a follower of Christ. But remember that I must first be "sober," if I am to be "vigilant"!
Third, "whom resist steadfast. " Resist his efforts to prejudice your heart against God, and instill into your mind evil thoughts about Him. He will try to make you doubt His love, murmur against the severity of His providences and the strictness of His commandments. Resist his enticements to draw you unto the place of temptation, remembering that God has said "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness" (Ephesians 5:11). Resist his efforts to lead you into active sinning: saying with Joseph, "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God!" (Genesis 39:9).
Our resistance must be earnest and zealous. If a madman attacked and you were fighting for your very life, you would put forth every effort. So it must be here: it is your own soul he is seeking to destroy. Eve's resistance was faint and half-hearted: she dallied with his evil solicitations. Be warned from her fall. By "earnest" I mean, Be indignant at his first suggestions-for example, to laze in bed on the Sabbath morning. Our resistance must be thorough. The approaches of Satan to the soul are gradual: he asks us to yield but a little at first. Many promise themselves they will stop after they have conceded a trifle, but when a stone at the top of the hill starts rolling down, it is hard to stop. We see this principle forcibly illustrated in the case of gamblers and drunkards. Take heed unto thyself. Our resistance must be constant and continuous: not only against his first attack, but his whole siege. The Devil is very persevering, and we must be so too.
Let these three considerations bestir unto this imperative duty of resistance. First, the Devil cannot overcome without your consent: but where there is not a powerful dissent, there is a virtual consent. Take a positive attitude against the great Enemy of souls. Second, think much of the blessedness of victory: this will more than compensate you for all the diligence and strenuous efforts you make. The pleasures of sin are only for a season, but the pleasures and gains of self-denial are eternal: read Mark 10:29, 30. Third, remember that God's grace is promised unto the one who resists. God delivers, but we "keep ourselves" (1 John 5:18). It is via our watchfulness and prayer that God makes such resistance effectual. There is no promise that God will keep a careless and lax soul.
"Whom resist steadfast in the faith." Probably there is a double reference here in the expression "the faith." First, the analogy of faith, or Word of God-compare Jude 3; second, the exercise of the grace of faith. Satan is "the power of darkness" (Luke 22:53), and only the light of God can expose and expel him. Satan uses error to deceive souls, and the truth of God is needed to deliver us. We are to resist him in the faith, by believing, receiving, and acting out the Holy Scriptures. We are also to resist the Devil by the exercise of the grace of faith. Our hearts must lay hold of the precepts and promises of God. A blessed example of this has been left us by Christ: "He resisted the Devil steadfastly in the faith," using against him naught but the Sword of the Spirit.
"Whom resist steadfast in the faith." When we stagger through unbelief, we are powerless to stand before our great Enemy. It was through doubting God's threat that Eve fell. But we can only successfully resist the Devil "steadfast in the faith" as there is a personal appropriation of Christ's victory. It is written, "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 12:11). Plead that blood before God for deliverance from Satan's temptations. Count upon its efficacy to deliver you. Shelter beneath it when you realize that Satan is shooting his fiery darts at you.
Finally, let it be pointed out that, either we must overcome the Devil, or be overcome by him. There is no third alternative! If we are completely overcome by him, the result will be fatal. He is not merely seeking to wound us, but to "devour" (1 Peter 5:8)! And how is this to be harmonized with the eternal security of God's people? Easily: if we be real Christians, we shall, by Divine grace, resist and overcome the Devil. But if we continue heeding his suggestions and yielding to his temptations and are thoroughly overcome by him, then no matter how much Scripture we know in our heads, or what our profession, we belong to the Devil, and are his lawful captives.
This article available in tract form.

Rejoice in the Lord

2005-11-11T07:38:00.000-08:00

"Rejoice in the Lord Alway"
(Philippians 4:4)
by Arthur W. Pink

Why should I, who am by nature no different from the careless and godless throngs all around, have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and now blest with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Him? Why was I, that once was an alien and a rebel, signaled out for such wondrous favors? Ah, that is something I cannot fathom. Such grace, such love, "passeth knowledge." But if my mind is unable to discern a reason, my heart can express its gratitude in praise and adoration. But not only should I be grateful to God for His grace toward me in the past, His present dealings will fill me with thanksgivings. What is the force of that word "Rejoice in the Lord alway" (Phil. 4:4)? Mark it is not "Rejoice in the Saviour", but we are to "Rejoice in the Lord", as "Lord", As THE MASTER OF EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE. Need we remind the reader that when the apostle penned these words he was himself a prisoner in the hands of the Roman government. A long course of affliction and suffering lay behind him. Perils on land and perils on sea, hunger and thirst, scourging and stoning, had all been experienced. He had been persecuted by those within the church as well as by those without: the very ones who ought to have stood by him had forsaken him. And still he writes, "Rejoice in the Lord alway" What was the secret of his peace and happiness? Ah! had not this same apostle written, "And we know that all things work tegether for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28)? But how did he, and how do we, "know", that all things work together for good? The answer is, Because all things are under the control of and are being regulated by the Supreme Sovereign, and because He has naught but thoughts of love toward His own, then "all things are so ordered by Him that they are MADE TO MINISTER TO OUR ULTIMATE GOOD. It is for this cause we are to give "thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20). Yes, give thanks for "all things" for, as it has been well said "Our disappointments are but His appointments." To the one who delights in the sovereignty of God the clouds not only have a 'silver lining' but they are silvern all through, the darkness only serving to offset the light!

EVIL EFFECTS OF UNBE

2005-11-11T06:29:00.000-08:00

EVIL EFFECTS OF UNBELIEF
By John Flavel

Why are ye so fearful, and how is it that ye have no faith?
Mark 4:40

THE less faith, still the more fear. Fear is generated by unbelief, and unbelief strengthened by fear. As in nature there is an observable circular generation, vapors beget showers, and showers new vapors, so it is in things moral, and therefore all the skill in the world can never cure us of the disease of fear till God first cures us of our unbelief. Christ therefore took the right method to rid his disciples of their fear by rebuking their unbelief. The remains of this sin in God's own people are the cause and fountain of their fears; and more particularly to show how fear is generated by unbelief let a few particulars be needfully adverted to.
1. Unbelief weakens and stumbles the assenting act of faith, and thereby cuts off from the soul, in a great measure, its principal relief against dangers and troubles. It is the use and office of faith to realize to the soul the invisible things of the world to come, and thereby encourage it against the fears and dangers of the present world. Thus "Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured, as seeing him that is invisible." If this assenting act of faith be weakened or staggered in the soul; if once invisibles seem uncertainties, and visibles the only realities, no wonder we are so scared and frightened when these visible and sensible comforts are exposed and endangered, as they often are and will be in this mutable world. That man must needs be afraid to stand his ground that is not thoroughly persuaded the ground he stands on is firm and good; it is not to be wondered that men should tremble, who seem to feel the ground shake and reel under them.
2. Unbelief shuts up the refuges of the soul in the divine promises, and, by leaving it without those refuges, must needs leave it in the hands of fears and terrors. That which fortifies and emboldens a Christian in evil times is his dependence on God for protection. "I fly unto thee to hide me." The cutting off this retreat, which nothing but unbelief can do, deprives the soul of all those succors and supports which the promises afford, and, consequently, fills the heart with anxiety and fear.
3. Unbelief makes man negligent and careless in providing for troubles before they come, and so brings them by the way of surprise upon them; and the more surprising any evil is, the more frightful it is always found to be. We can not think that Noah was so affrighted at the flood, when it began to swell above all the hills and mountains, as all the rest of the world were; nor was there any reason that he should, having foreseen it by faith, and made provision for it. "By faith Noah, being warned of God, prepared an ark." Augustine relates a very pertinent and memorable story of Paulinus, bishop of Nola, who was a very rich man both in goods and grace. He had much of the world in his hands, but little of it in his heart; and it was well there was not, for the Goths, a barbarous people, breaking into that city like so many devils, fell upon their prey. Those that trusted to the treasures which they had were deceived and ruined by them, for the rich were put to tortures to confess where they had hid their moneys. This good bishop fell into their hands, and lost all he had, but was scarce moved at the loss, as appears by his prayer, which my author relates thus: "Lord, let me not be troubled for my gold and silver; thou knowest it is not my treasure that I have laid up in heaven according to thy command. I was warned of this judgment before it came, and provided for it; and where all my interest lies, Lord, thou knowest."
Thus Mr. Bradford, when the keeper's wife came running into his chamber suddenly with words able to have put the most of men in the world into a trembling posture, "Oh Mr. Bradford! I bring you heavy tidings; tomorrow you must be burned, and your chain is now buying." He put off his hat, and said, "Lord, I thank thee. I have looked for this a great while; it is not terrible to me. God, make me worthy of such a mercy." See the benefit of a prospect of and preparation for sufferings!
4. Unbelief leaves our dearest interests and concerns in our own hands; it commits nothing to God, and, consequently, must needs fill the heart with distracting fears when imminent dangers threaten us. Reader, if this be thy case, thou wilt be surrounded with terrors whensoever thou shalt be surrounded with dangers and troubles. Believers in this, as well as in many other things, have the advantage, that they have committed all that is precious and valuable to them into the hand of God by faith; to him they have committed the keeping of their souls and all their eternal concerns; and these being put into safe hands, they are not distracted with fears about other matters of less value, but can trust them where they have intrusted the greater, and enjoy the quietness and peace of a resigned soul to God. But as for thee, thy life, thy liberty, yea, which is infinitely more than all these things, thy soul, will lie upon thy hands in the day of trouble, and thou wilt not know what to do with them, nor which way to dispose of them. Oh! these be the dreadful straits and frights that unbelief leaves men in; it is a fountain of fears and distractions. And, indeed, it can not but distract and confound carnal men, in whom it reigns and is in its full strength, when sad experience shows us what fears and tremblings the remains of this sin beget in the best men who are not fully freed from it. If the unpurged remains of unbelief in them can thus darken and cloud their evidences, thus greaten and multiply their dangers; if it can draw such sad and frightful conclusions in their hearts, notwithstanding all the contrary experience of their lives, what panic fears and unrelieved terrors must it put those men under where it is in its full strength and dominion ?

THE EVIL OF SIN

2005-11-11T06:27:00.000-08:00

THE EVIL OF SIN
John Flavel

If the death of Christ was that which satisfied God for our sins, there is infinite evil in sin, since it would not be expiated but by an infinite satisfaction. Fools make a mock at sin, and there are few in the world who are fully sensible of its evil- but certainly, if God should exact of thee the full penalty, thy eternal sufferings could not satisfy for the evil there is in one vain thought. You may think it severe, that God should subject his creatures to everlasting sufferings for sin, and never be satisfied with them any more. But when you have well considered, that the Being against whom you sin is the infinitely blessed God, and how God dealt with the angels that fell, you will change your mind. Oh the depth of the evil of sin! If ever you wish to see how great and horrid an evil sin is, measure it in your thoughts, either by the infinite holiness and excellency of God, who is wronged by it; or by the infinite sufferings of Christ, who died to satisfy for it; and then you will have deeper apprehensions of its enormity.
If the death of Christ satisfied God, and thereby redeemed us from the curse; then the redemption of souls is costly; souls are precious and of great value with God. "Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition; but with the precious blood of the Son of God, as of a lamb without spot." (I Peter 1: 18,19). Only the blood of God is an equivalent for the redemption of souls. Gold and silver may redeem from human, but not from hellish bondage. The whole creation is not a value for the redemption of one soul. Souls are very dear; he that paid for them found them so: yet how cheaply do sinners sell their souls.
If Christ's death satisfied God for our sins, how unparalleled is the love of God to poor sinners! If Christ, by dying, has made full satisfaction, then God can consistently pardon the greatest of sinners that believe in Jesus.

Christ the Desire of

2005-11-11T06:26:00.000-08:00

Christ the Desire of All Nations
by John Flavel

"And the desire of all nations shall come." Haggai 2:7.
The first chapter of Haggai is mainly spent in reproving the negligence of the Jews, who, being discouraged from time to time, had delayed the rebuilding of the temple. In the meantime they employed their care and cost in building and adorning their own houses: but, at last, being persuaded to set about the work, they met with this discouragement, that such was the poverty of the present time, that the second structure would not match the magnificence and splendor of the first. In Solomon's days the nation was wealthy, but now it was drained; so that there would be no comparison between the second and the first. To this great discouragement the prophet applies this relief: that whatsoever should be lacking in external pomp and glory, should be more than recompensed by the presence of Jesus Christ in this second temple. For Christ, "the desire of all nations," he says, shall come into it. Which, by the way, may give us this useful note: The presence of Jesus Christ gives a more real and excellent glory to the places of his worship, than any external beauty or outward ornaments whatsoever can bestow upon them. Our eyes, like the disciples, are apt to be dazzled with the sparkling stones of the temple, and, in the meantime, to neglect and overlook that which gives it the greatest honour and beauty.
But to return. In these words we have both the description of Christ, and an arrow pointing at the time of his incarnation: he is called "the desire of all nations," and the time of his coming in the flesh is clearly implied to be during the time of the second temple. Where, by the way, we find a valid reason to stand amazed at and bemoan the blindness of the Jews. They admit the truth of this prophecy and are not able to deny the destruction of the second temple, many hundred years past, yet will not be brought to acknowledge the incarnation of the true Messiah.
But to the point. Christ, called the desire of all nations, was to come into the world in the time of the second temple, Mal. 3:12, after grievous shocks and shakings of the world. They were to make way for his coming; for so our prophet here speaks, "I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come," to which the apostle alludes, in Heb. 12:26, applying this prophecy to Jesus Christ. Here Christ is called the "desire of all nations," putting the act of desiring in the place of the thing desired: as in Ezek. 24:16. "The desire of your eyes," that is to say, the desirable wife of your bosom; so here, the "desire of all nations," is Christ, the object of the desires of God's elect in all nations of the world. He is a Saviour infinitely desirable in himself, and actually desired by all the people of God, dispersed among all races, tongues, and nations of the world. Therefore note,
Doctrine: That the desires of God's elect in all kingdoms, and among all people of the earth, are, and shall be drawn out after and fixed upon, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The merciful God beholding the universal ruins of the world by sin, has provided a universal remedy for his own elect, in every part of the earth. Christ is not restricted to any one kingdom or nation in the world; but intended to be God's salvation to the ends of the earth; and accordingly speaks the apostle, Col 3:11 "There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all." In the explanation of this point two things must be enquired into: 1. Why Christ is called the desire of all nations. 2. Upon what account the people of God, in all nations, desire him.
Let us begin with an examination of why he is called the desire of all nations, and what that phrase may mean. There are several things that are supposed, or included in it.
First, God the Father has appointed him as a common remedy for the sins and miseries of his people, in all parts and quarters of the world. So in the covenant of redemption, between the Father and the Son, the Lord expresses himself, Isa 49:6 "It is too small a thing that you should be my Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the gentiles, that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth." This is similar to the prophecy of Isa 52:15 "So shall He sprinkle many nations." If God had not appointed him for this, he could not be desired by all nations.
And, indeed, the grace of God admirably shines forth in the freeness of it, that even the most barbarous nations are not excluded from the benefits of redemption by Christ. This is what the apostle delights, that Christ should be preached to the Gentiles, 1 Tim. 3:16. They were a people that seemed to be lost in the darkness of idolatry; yet even for them Christ was given by the Father, "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for your possession." (Psalm 2:8)
Secondly, Christ is called the desire of all nations, plainly because of the sufficiency that is in him to supply the needs of the whole world. As the sun in the heavens suffices all nations for light and influence, so does the Sun of righteousness suffice for the redemption, justification, sanctification and salvation of the people of God all over the world; Isa 45:22, "Look to me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth."
Thirdly, it implies the reality that is in godliness. It shows you that religion is no imagination, as the atheistic world would try to persuade us; and this evidently appears in the uniform effects of it upon the hearts of all men, in all nations of the world, that are truly religious. All their desires, like so many needles touched by one and the same loadstone, move towards Jesus Christ, and all meet together in one and the same blessed object, Christ. Were it possible for the people of God to come out of all nations, races and languages in the world, into one place, and there confer and compare the desires and workings of their hearts, though they never saw each other's faces, nor heard of each other's names, yet, as face corresponds to face in a glass, so would their desires after Christ correspond to each other. All hearts work after him in the same manner; what one says, all say: These are my troubles and burdens, these my wants and miseries; the same things are my desires and fears: one and the same Spirit works in all believers throughout the world. This could never be if religion were but an imagination, as some call it; or a fraud or conspiracy, as others call it: hallucinations are as various as faces; and conspiracies presuppose mutual acquaintance and conference.
Fourthly, Christ, the desire of all nations, implies the vast extent his kingdom has, and shall have in the world; out of every nation under heaven some shall be brought to Christ, and to heaven by him. Though the number of God's elect, compared with the multitudes of the ungodly in all nations, is but a remnant, a little flock; and, in that comparative sense, there are few that shall be saved; yet considered absolutely, and in themselves, they are a vast number, which no man can number, Matt 8:11 "Many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." It is in order to accomplish this that the gospel, like the sun in the heavens, travels around the world. It arose in the east, and takes its course towards the western world; rising, by degrees, upon the remote, idolatrous nations of the earth: out of all which a number is to be saved. Even "Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God," Psalm 68:31. This consideration should move us to pray earnestly for the poor Heathens, who yet sit in darkness and the shadow of death. There is yet hope for them.
Fifthly, it holds forth this, that when God opens the eyes of men to see their sin and danger by it, nothing but Christ can give them satisfaction: it is not the amenity, fertility, riches and pleasures, the inhabitants of any kingdom of the world do enjoy, that can satisfy the desires of their souls: when once God touches their hearts with the sense of sin and misery, then Christ, and no one but Christ, is desirable and necessary in the eyes of such persons. Many kingdoms of the world abound with riches and pleasures; the providence of God has carved liberal portions of the good things of this life to many of them, and scarcely left any thing lacking to their desires that the world can afford. Yet all this can give no satisfaction without Jesus Christ, the desire of all nations, the one thing necessary, when once they come to see the necessity and excellency of him. When this happens, give them whatever you wish of the world, nevertheless they must have Christ, the desire of their souls.
Thus we see upon what grounds and reasons Christ is called the desire of all nations.
Objection. But there remains one great objection against this truth, which must be resolved, namely: if Christ is the desire of all nations, how is it possible that Jesus Christ finds no reception in so many nations of the world? For among many peoples Christianity is hissed at, and Christians are not tolerated to live among them? They see no "beauty in him that they should desire him." (Isa 53:2)
Answer. First, we must remember the nations of the world have their times and seasons of conversion; those that once embraced Christ, have now lost him, and idols are now set up in the places where he once was sweetly worshipped. The sun of the gospel is gone down upon them, and now shines in another Hemisphere; and so the nations of the world are to have their distinct days and seasons of illumination. The gospel, like the sea, gains in one place what it loses in another; and in the times and seasons appointed by the Father, they come successively to be enlightened in the knowledge of Christ; and then shall the promise be fulfilled, Isa 49:7 "Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to the Servant of rulers: 'Kings shall see and arise, Princes also shall worship, because of the Lord who is faithful.'"
Secondly, let it also be remembered, that although Christ may be rejected by the rulers and body of many nations; yet he is the desire of all the elect of God dispersed and scattered among those nations.
In the next place, we are to enquire upon what account Christ becomes the desire of all nations, i.e. of all those in all the nations of the world, that belong, to the election of grace. And the true ground and reason thereof is, because only Christ has in himself that which relieves their emptiness, and answers to all their need. As,
First, they are all, by nature, under condemnation, Rom. 5:16,18. under the curse of the law; against which nothing is found in heaven or earth able to relieve their consciences but the blood of sprinkling, the pure and perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus. And hence it is that Christ becomes so desirable in the eyes of poor sinners, all the world over. If any thing in ordinary nature could be found to pacify and purge the consciences of men from guilt and fear, Christ would never be desirable in their eyes; but finding no other remedy but the blood of Jesus, to him, therefore, shall all the ends of the earth look for righteousness, and for peace.
Secondly, all nations of the world are polluted with the filth of sin, both in nature and practice, which they shall see, and bitterly bewail, when the light of the gospel shall shine among them; and the same light, by which this shall be discovered, will also reveal that the only remedy of this evil lies in the spirit of Christ, the only fountain opened to all nations for sanctification and cleansing. This will make the Lord Jesus incomparably desirable in their eyes. O how welcome will he be who comes to them, not by blood only, but by water also, I John 5:6.
Thirdly, when the light of the gospel shall shine upon the nations, they shall then see that because of the guilt and filth of sin, they are all barred out of heaven. Those doors are chained up against them, and that no one but Christ can open an entrance for them into that kingdom of God. For, "no one comes to the Father except through me," John 14:6. "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved," Acts 4:12. Hence the hearts of sinners shall pant after him, as a hart pants for the water brooks. And thus you see upon what grounds Christ becomes the desire of all nations. Five applications flow from this point: 1. For information. 2. For examination. 3. For consolation. 4. For exhortation. 5. For direction.
First Application: for information.
1. Is Christ the desire of all nations? How vile a sin is it then for any nation, upon whom the light of the gospel has shined, to reject Jesus Christ? They would say as those in Job 21:14, "Depart from us, For we do not desire the knowledge of your ways." They would thrust away his worship, government, and servants; and in effect say, as it is Luke 19:14, "We will not have this man to reign over us." Thus did the Jews, Acts 13:46. They put away Christ from among themselves, and thereby judged themselves unworthy of eternal life. This is at once a fearful sin, and a dreadful warning. How soon did vengeance overtake them like the overthrow of Sodom? O, let it be for a warning to all nations to the end of the world. He would have gathered the children of Israel under his wings as a hen does her brood, even when the Roman Eagle was hovering over them, but they would not, therefore their houses were left to them desolate, their city and temple made a heap.
2. If Jesus Christ be the desire of all nations, how incomparably happy then must that nation be, that enjoys Christ in the power and purity of his gospel-ordinances! If Christ under a veil made Canaan a glorious land, [as it is called in] Dan. 11:41, what a glorious place must that nation be that beholds him with open face in the bright sun-shine of the gospel! O England, know your happiness and the day of your visitation! What others desire, you enjoy: provoke not the Lord Jesus to depart from you by corrupting his worship, longing after idolatry, abusing his messengers, and oppressing his people, lest his spirit depart from you.
Second Application: for examination.
If Christ is the desire of all nations, examine whether he is the desire of your souls in particular; otherwise you shall have no benefit by him. Are your desires after Christ true spiritual desires? Reflect, I beseech you, upon the attitudes and tempers of your heart. Can you say of your desires after Christ, as Peter did of his love to Christ? "Lord, you know all things, you know that I desire you." Examine your desires as to their sincerity by the following tests:
1. Are they passionate and earnest? Does Christ have the supreme place in your desires? Do you esteem all things to be but dross and dung in comparison to the excellencies of Jesus Christ your Lord? (Phil. 3:8) Is he to you as the refuge city to the man slayer? (Heb. 6:18,19) As a spring of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land? (Isa. 31:2) Such passionate desires are true desires.
2. Are your desires after Christ universal; that is to say, is every thing in Christ desirable in your eyes? The hypocrite, like the harlot, is for a divided Christ; they would be called by his name, but depend upon themselves, Isa. 4:1. If his holiness and government, his cross and sufferings are desirable for his own sake: such universal desires are right desires.
3. Are your desires after Christ industrious desires, using all the means of accomplishing what you desire? You say you desire Christ, but what will you do to obtain your desires? If you serve him carefully and incessantly in all the ways of duty; if you will strive in prayer, labour to believe, cut off right hands, and pluck out right eyes, in other words- be content to part with the most profitable and pleasant ways of sin that you may enjoy Christ, the desire of your souls; then your desires are right desires.
4. Are your desires after Christ permanent desires, or only a sudden motion or impulse which later fades away? If your desires after Christ abide upon your hearts, if your longings be after him at all times, though not in the same height and degree, then your desires are right desires. Christ always dwells in the desires of his people; they can feel him in their desires, when they cannot discern him in their love or delight.
5. Will your desires after Christ admit no satisfaction, nor find rest anywhere but in the enjoyment of Christ? Then your desires are right desires. The soul that desires Christ can never be at rest till it comes home to Christ, 2 Cor. 5:2, Phil. 1:23. The devil can satisfy others with the riches and pleasure of this world, as children are quieted with rattles; but if nothing but Christ can rest and accomplish your desires, surely such restless desires are right desires.
6. Do your desires after Christ spring from a deep sense of your need and want of Christ? Has conviction opened your eyes to see your misery, to feel your burdens, and to make you aware that your remedy lies only in the Lord Jesus? Then your desires are right desires. Bread and water are made necessary and desirable by hunger and thirst; by these things examine the truth of your desires after Christ.
Third Application: for consolation.
Do you indeed, upon serious examination, find such desires after Christ as were described above? O, bless the Lord for that day when Christ, the desire of all nations, became the desire of your souls; and for your comfort, know that you are happy and blessed souls at present.
1. You are blessed in this, that your eyes have been opened to see both the need and worth of Christ. Had not Christ applied his precious eye-salve to the eyes of your mind, you could never have desired him; you would have said with them in Isa. 53:2, "He has no form or comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." Or, as they asked the spouse, Song 5:9 "What is your beloved more than another beloved?" O, blessed souls, enlightened of the Lord, to see those things that are hid from them that perish!
2. You are blessed in this, that your desires after Christ are a sure evidence that the desire of Christ is towards you: had he not first desired you, you could never have desired him. We may say of desires, as it is said of love, we desire him because he first desired us: your desires after Christ are inflamed from the desires of Christ after you.
3. You are blessed in this, that your desires shall surely be satisfied, Matt. 5:6, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Prov. 10:24, "The desires of the righteous shall be granted." God never raised such desires as these in the souls of his people, to be a torment to them for ever.
4. You are blessed in this, that God has guided your desires to make the best choice that ever was made in the world, while the desires of others are hunting after riches, pleasure, and honour in the world; toiling themselves like children in pursuit of a painted butterfly, which when they have caught, only discolours their fingers. God, meanwhile, directed your desires to Christ, the most excellent object in heaven or earth. Any good will satisfy some men; O, happy soul, if none but Christ can satisfy you! (Psa 4:6)
5. You are blessed in this, that there is a work of grace certainly wrought upon your soul; and these very desires after Christ are a part thereof.
6. You are blessed in this, that these desires after Christ keep your soul active and working after him continually in the ways of duty, Psa 27:4 "One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple." Desire will be a continual spring to diligence and industry in the ways of duty; the desire of the end awakens the use of means, Prov. 16:26. Others may fall asleep and cast off duty, but it will be hard for you to do so, whose souls burn with desire after Christ.
7 You are blessed in this, that your desires after Christ will make death much the sweeter and easier to you, Phil 1:23 "For I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." When a Christian was once asked, whether he was willing to die, he answered in return, "Let him be unwilling to die, who is unwilling to go to Christ." And much like it, was the reply of another, Vivere renuo, ut Christo vivam: I refuse this life, to live with Christ.
Fourth Application: for exhortation.
In the fourth place, let me exhort and persuade all to make Jesus Christ the desire and choice of their souls. Here I present the extent and design of the gospel: O that I could effectively press home this exhortation upon your hearts; let me offer some moving considerations to you, and may the Lord apply them to your hearts.
1. Every creature naturally desires its own preservation; do not you desire the preservation of your precious and immortal soul? If you do, then make Christ your desire and choice, without whom they can never be preserved, Jude 1.
2. Do not your souls earnestly desire the bodies they live in? How tender are they over them, how careful to provide for them? (Though they pay an expensive rent for those tenements they live in.) Is not union with Christ infinitely more desirable than the union of soul and body? O covet union with him! Then shall your souls be happy, when your bodies drop off from them at death, 2 Cor. 5:1,2. Indeed, soul and body shall be happy in him, and with him forevermore.
3. How do the men of this world devote themselves to the enjoyments of it? They pant after the dust of the earth; they rise early, sit up late, eat the bread of carefulness; and all this for vanity indeed-- Shall a worldling do more for earth, than you for heaven? Shall the creature be so earnestly desired, and Christ neglected?
4. What do all your desires in this world benefit you, if you go christless? Suppose you had the desire of your hearts in these things, how long should you have comfort in them, if you miss Christ?
5. Does Christ desire you, who have nothing lovely or desirable in you? And have you no desires after Christ, the most lovely and desirable one in both worlds? "His desires are towards you," Prov. 8:31. O make him the desire and choice of your souls.
6. How absolutely necessary is Jesus Christ to your souls? Bread and water, breath and life, are not so necessary as Christ is; "One thing is necessary," Luke 10:42, and that one thing is Christ. If you miss your desires in other things, you may yet be happy; but if you miss Christ you are undone for ever.
7. How suitable a good is Christ to your souls! He has within himself whatsoever they want, 1 Cor. 1:30. Set your hearts where you will, nothing will be found to match and suit them, as Christ does.
8. How great are the benefits that will come to you by Jesus Christ! In him you will have a rich inheritance settled upon you: all things shall be yours, when you are Christ's, l Cor. 3:22. And is not such a Christ worth desiring?
9. All your well grounded hopes of glory are built upon your union with Christ, 1 Cor. 1:21. If you miss Christ, you must die without hope. Will not this draw your desires to him?
10. Suppose you were at the judgment seat of God, where you must shortly stand, and saw the terrors of the Lord in that day; the sheep divided from the goats; the sentences of absolution and condemnation passed by the great and awful Judge upon the righteous and wicked: would not Christ then be desirable in your eyes? As ever you expect to stand with comfort at that bar, let Christ be the desire and choice of your souls now.
Fifth Application: for direction.
Do these, or any other considerations, put you upon this enquiry- how shall I get my desires kindled and enflamed towards Christ? Alas! my heart is cold and dead, not a serious desire is stirring in it after Christ. To you I shall offer the following directions:
Direction 1. Redeem some time every day for meditation; get out of the noise and clamour of the world, Psa 4:4, and seriously consider how the present state of your soul stands, and how it is likely to go with you in eternity: here all sound conversion begins, Psa 69:29.
Direction 2. Consider seriously that lamentable state in which you came into the world. You are a child of wrath by nature, under the curse and condemnation of the law: so that either your state must be changed, or you will inevitably be damned, John 3:3.
Direction 3. Consider the way and course you have taken since you came into the world, proceeding from iniquity to iniquity. What command of God have you not violated a thousand times over? What sin is committed in the world, that you are not one way or other guilty of before God? How many secret sins are upon your score, unknown to the most intimate friend you have in the world? Either this guilt must be separated from your souls, or your souls from God for all eternity.
Direction 4. Think upon the severe wrath of God reserved for every sin; "The wages of sin is death," Rom. 6:23. And how intolerable the fulness of that wrath must be when a few drops sprinkled upon the conscience in this world are so insupportable, that has made some to choose suicide rather than life. Yet this wrath must abide for ever upon you, if you do not get an interest in Jesus Christ, John 3:36.
Direction 5. Ponder well the happy state and condition they are in who have obtained pardon and peace by Jesus Christ, Psa 32:1,2. And seeing the grace of God is free, and you are set under the means of it; why may not you be as likely to find it as others?
Direction 6. Seriously consider the great uncertainty of your time and the preciousness of the opportunities of salvation, never to be recovered when they are once past, John 9:4. Let this arouse you to lay hold upon those golden seasons while they are yet with you; that you may not bewail your folly and madness, when they are out of your reach.
Direction 7. Associate yourselves with serious Christians; get into their acquaintance, and beg their assistance; beseech them to pray for you; and see that you rest not here, but be frequently upon your knees, begging of the Lord a new heart and a new state.
In conclusion of the whole, let me beseech and beg all the people of God, as upon my knees, to take heed, and beware, lest by the carelessness and scandal of their lives they quench the weak desires beginning to kindle in the hearts of others. You know what the law of God demands for striking a woman with child, so that her fruit go from her, Exod. 21:22,23. O shed not soul-blood, by stifling the hopeful desires of any after Christ.

GODS SOVEREIGNTY AND

2005-11-10T20:51:00.000-08:00

GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY AND THE HUMAN WILL
By A. W. Pink

"It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure " (PHIL. 4:13).
Concerning the nature and the power of fallen man's will, the greatest confusion prevails today and the most erroneous views are held, even by many of God's children. The popular idea now prevailing, and which is taught from the great majority of pulpits, is that man has a "free will," and that salvation comes to the sinner through his will co-operating with the Holy Spirit. To deny the "free will" of man, i.e. his power to choose that which is good, his native ability to accept Christ, is to bring one into disfavour at once, even before most of the those who profess to be orthodox. And yet Scripture emphatically says, "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth. but of God that showeth mercy " (Rom. 9:16). Again the Word expressly declares, "There is none that seeketh after God " (Rom. 3:11). Did not Christ say to the men of His day, "Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life " (John 5:40)? Yes, but some did "come" to Him, some did receive Him. True and who were they? John 1:12,13 tells us: " But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God"! But does not Scripture say, " Whosoever will may come"? It does, but does this signify that everybody has the will to come? What of those who won't come? "Whosoever will may come" no more implies that fallen man has the power in himself to come, than "Stretch forth thine hand " implied that the man with the withered arm had ability in himself to comply. In and of himself the natural man has power to reject Christ; but in and of himself he has not the power to receive Christ. And why? Because he has a mind that is "enmity against " Him (Rom. 8:7); because he has a heart that hates Him John 15:18). Man chooses that which is according to his nature, and therefore before he will ever choose or prefer that which is divine and spiritual, a new nature must be imparted to him; in other words, he must be born again.
But it may be asked, Does not the Holy Spirit overcome a man's enmity and hatred when He convicts the sinner of his sins and his need of Christ; and does not the Spirit of God produce such conviction in many that perish? Such language betrays confusion of thought: were such a man's enmity really "overcome," then he would readily turn to Christ; that he does not come to the Savior, demonstrates that his enmity is not overcome. But that many are, through the preaching of the Word, convicted by the Holy Spirit, who nevertheless die in unbelief, is solemnly true. Yet it is a fact which must not be lost sight of, that the Holy Spirit does something more in each of God's elect than He does in the non-elect: He works in them " both to will and to do of God's good pleasure" (Phil. 2: l3).
In reply to what we have said above. Arminians would answer, No; the Spirit s work of conviction is the same 60th in the converted and in the unconverted. That which distinguishes the one class from the other is that the former yield to His strivings, whereas the latter resist them. But if this were the case, then the Christian would make himself to "differ," whereas the Scripture attributes the "differing" to God's discriminating grace (1 Cor. 4: 7). Again; if such were the case, then the Christian would have ground for boasting and self-glorying over his co-operation with the Spirit; but this would flatly contradict Eph. 2:8, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."
Let us appeal to the actual experience of the Christian reader. Was there not a time (may the remembrance of it bow each of us into the dust!) when you were unwilling to come to Christ~ There was. Since then you have come to Him. Are you now prepared to give Him all the glory for that (Ps. 115:1)? Do You acknowledge you came to Christ because the Holy Spirit brought you from unwillingness to willingness? You do. Then is it not also a patent fact that the Holy Spirit has not done in many others what He has in you? Granted that many others have heard the Gospel, been shown their need of Christ; yet, they are still unwilling to come to Him. Thus He has wrought more in you than in them. Do you answer, Yet I remember well the time when the Great Issue was presented to me, and my consciousness testifies that my will acted and that I yielded to the claims of Christ upon me. Quite true! But before you "yielded," the Holy Spirit overcame the native enmity of your mind against God, and this "enmity " He does not overcome in all. Should it be said, That is because they are unwilling for their enmity to be overcome-ah, none are thus "willing" till He has put forth His almighty power and wrought a miracle of grace in the heart.
But let us now inquire, What is the human Will? Is it a self-determining agent, or is it, in turn, determined by something else? Is it sovereign or servant? Is the will superior to every other faculty of our being so that it governs them, or is it moved by their impulses and subject to their pleasure? Does the will rule the mind, or does the mind control the will? Is the will free to do as it pleases, or is it under the necessity of rendering obedience to something outside of itself? " Does the will stand apart from the other great faculties or powers of the soul, a man within a man, who can reverse the man and fly against the man and split him into segments, as a glass snake breaks in pieces? Or, is the will connected with the other faculties, as the tail of the serpent is with his body, and that again with his head, so that where the head goes, the whole creature goes, and, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he? First, thought; then, heart (desire or aversion); and then act. Is it this way the dog wags the tail? Or, is it the will. the tail, that wags the dog? Is the will the first and chief thing in the man, or is it the last thing-to be kept subordinate, and in its place beneath the other faculties-and, is the true philosophy of moral action and its process that of Gen. 3:6: 'And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food' (sense-perception, intelligence),'and a tree to be desired' (affections),'she took and ate thereof' (the will)." (G. S. Bishop). These are questions of more than academic interest. They are of practical importance. We believe that we do not go too far when we affirm that the answer returned to these questions is one of the fundamental tests of doctrinal soundness.
1. THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN WILL
What is the Will? We answer, the will is the faculty of choice, the immediate cause of all action. Choice necessarily implies the refusal of one thing and the acceptance of another. The positive and the negative must both be present to the mind before there can be any choice. In every act of the will there is preference-the desiring of one thing rather than another. Where there is no preference, but complete indifference, there is no volition. To will is to choose, and to choose is to decide between alternatives. But there is something which Influences the choice; something which determines the decision. Hence the will cannot be sovereign because it is the servant of that something. The will cannot be both sovereign and servant. It cannot be both cause and effect. The will is not causative, because, as we have said, something causes it to choose; therefore that something must be the causative agent. Choice itself is affected by certain considerations, is determined by various influences brought to bear upon the individual himself; hence, volition is the effect of these considerations and influences, and if the effect, it must be their servant; and if the will is their servant then it is not sovereign, and if the will is not sovereign, we certainly cannot predicate absolute "freedom" of it. Acts of the will cannot come to pass of themselves-to say they can, is to postulate an uncaused effect. 'Ex nihilo nihil fit'-out of nothing, nothing comes.
In all ages, however, there have been those who contended for the absolute freedom or sovereignty of the human will. Men will argue that the will possesses a self-determining power. For example, they say, I can turn my eyes up or down; the mind is quite indifferent which I do; the will must decide. But this is a contradiction in terms, This case supposes that I choose one thing in preference to another, while I am in a state of complete indifference. Manifestly, both cannot be true. But it may be replied that the mind was quite indifferent until it came to have a preference. Exactly; and at that time the will was quiescent, too! But the moment indifference vanished, choice was made, and the fact that indifference gave place to preference, overthrows the argument that the will is capable of choosing between two equal things. As we have said, choice implies the acceptance of one alternative and the rejection of the other or others.
That which determines the will is that which causes it to choose. If the will is determined, then there must be a determiner. Who is it that determines the will? We reply, The strongest motive power which is brought to bear upon it. What this motive power is, varies in different cases. With one it may be the logic of reason, with another the voice of conscience, with another the impulse of the emotions, with another the whisper of the tempter, with another the power of the Holy Spirit; whichever of these presents the strongest motive power and exerts the greatest influence upon the individual himself, is that which impels the will to act. In other words, the action of the will is determined by that condition of mind (which in turn is influenced by the world, the flesh, and the Devil, as well as by God), which has the greatest degree of tendency to excite volition. To illustrate what we have just said, let us analyze a simple example-
On a certain Lord's day afternoon a friend of ours was suffering from a severe headache. He was anxious to visit the sick, but feared that if he did so his own condition would grow worse, and as a consequence, he would be unable to attend the preaching of the Gospel that evening. Two alternatives confronted him: to visit the sick that afternoon and risk being sick himself, or, to take a rest that afternoon (and visit the sick the next day), and probably arise refreshed and fit for the evening service. Now what was it that decided our friend in choosing between these two alternatives? The will? Not at all. True, that in the end, the will made a choice, but the will itself was moved to make the choice. In the above case certain considerations presented strong motives for selecting either alternative; these motives were balanced the one against the other by the individual himself, i.e.. his heart and mind, and the one alternative being supported by stronger motives than the other, decision was formed accordingly, and then the will acted. On the one side, our friend felt impelled by a sense of duty to visit the sick; he was moved with compassion to do so, and thus a strong motive was presented to his mind. On the other hand, his judgment reminded him that he was feeling far from well himself, that he badly needed a rest, that if he visited the sick his own condition would probably be made worse, and in such case he would be prevented from attending the preaching of the Gospel that night. Furthermore, he knew that on the morrow, the Lord willing, he could visit the sick, and this being so, he concluded he ought to rest that afternoon. Here then were two sets of alternatives presented to our Christian brother: on the one side was a sense of duty plus his own sympathy, on the other side was a sense of his own need plus a real concern for God's glory, for he felt that he ought to attend the preaching of the Gospel that night. The latter prevailed. Spiritual considerations outweighed his sense of duty. His decision being taken, the will acted accordingly, and he retired to rest. An analysis of the above case shows that the mind or reasoning faculty was directed by spiritual considerations, and the mind regulated and controlled the will. Hence we say that, if the will is controlled, it is neither sovereign nor free, but is the servant of the mind.
It is often taught that the will governs the man, but the Word of God teaches that it is the heart which is the dominating centre of our being. Many scriptures might be quoted in substantiation of this. " Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life " (Prov. 4.23). " For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders," etc. (Mark 7:21). Here our Lord traces these sinful acts back to their sources, and declares that their fountain is the " heart," and not the will! Again; " This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me" (Matt. 15:8). If further proof were required we might call attention to the fact that the word " heart " is found in the Bible more than three times as often as the word " will," even though nearly half of the references to the latter refer to God's will! When we affirm that it is the heart and not the will which governs the man, we are not merely striving about words, but insisting on a distinction that is of vital importance. Here is an individual before whom two alternatives are placed; which will he choose? We answer, the one which is more agreeable to himself, i.e., his " heart "-the innermost core of his being. Before the sinner is set a life of virtue and piety, and a life of sinful indulgence; which will he follow? The latter. Why? Because this is his choice. But does that prove the will is sovereign? Not at all. Go back from effect to cause. Why does the sinner choose a life of sinful indulgence? Because he prefers it-and he does prefer it, all arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, though of course he does not enjoy the effects of such a course. And why does he prefer it? Because his heart is sinful. The same alternatives, in like manner, confront the Christian, and he chooses and strives after a life of piety and virtue. Why? Because God has given him a new heart or nature. Hence we say it is not the will which makes the sinner impervious to all ap peals to "forsake his way," but his corrupt and evil heart. He will not come to Christ, because he does not want to, and h does not want to because his heart hates Him and loves sin: see Jer. 17.9!
2. THE BONDAGE OF THE HUMAN WILL.
In any treatise that proposes to deal with the human will, its nature and functions, respect should be had to the will in three different men, namely, unfallen Adam, the sinner, and the Lord Jesus Christ. In unfallen Adam the will was free, free in both directions, free toward good and free toward evil. But with the sinner it is far otherwise. The sinner is born with a will that is not in a condition of moral equipoise, because in him there is a heart that is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," and this gives him a bias toward evil. So, too, with the Lord Jesus it was far otherwise: He also differed radically from unfallen Adam. The Lord Jesus Christ could not sin because He was "the Holy One of God." Before He was born into this world it was said to Mary, " The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Speaking reverently then, we say, that the will of the Son of Man was not in a condition of moral equipoise, that is, capable of turning towards either good or evil. The will of the Lord Jesus was biased toward that which is good because, side by side with His sinless, holy, perfect humanity, was His eternal Deity. Now in contradistinction from the will of the Lord Jesus which was biased toward good, and Adam's will which, before his fall. was in a condition of moral equipoise-capable of turning towards either good or evil-the sinner's will is biased towards evil, and therefore is "free" in one direction only, namely, in the direction of evil. The sinner's will is enslaved because, as we have already said, it is in bondage to a depraved heart.
In what does the sinner's freedom consist? This question is naturally suggested by what we have just said above. The sinner is free in the sense of being unforced from without.' The sinner is never forced to sin. But the sinner is not free to do either good or evil, because an evil heart within is ever inclining him toward sin. Let us illustrate what we have in mind. I hold in my hand a book. I release it; what happens! It falls. In which direction? Downwards; always downwards. Why? Because, answering the law of gravity, its own weight sinks it. Suppose I desire the book to occupy a position three feet higher, then what? I must lift it; a power outside of the book must raise it. Such is the relationship which fallen man sustains toward God. While Divine power upholds him, he is preserved from plunging still deeper into sin; let the power be withdrawn, and he falls-his own weight (of sin) drags him down. God does not push him down, any more than I did the book. Let all Divine restraint be removed, and every man is capable of becoming, would become, a Cain, a Pharaoh, a Judas. How then is the sinner to move heavenwards? By an act of his own will? Not so. A power outside of himself must grasp hold of him and lift him every inch of the way. The sinner is free, but free in one direction only-free to fall, free to sin. As the Word expresses it: "Far when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness " (Rom. 6: 20). The sinner is free to do as he pleases, always as he pleases (except as he is restrained by God), buút his pleasure is to sin.
In the opening section of this chapter we insisted that a proper conception of the nature and function of the will is of practical importance, nay, that it constitutes a fundamental test of theological orthodoxy or doctrinal soundness. We wish to amplify this statement andúattempt to demonstrate its accuracy. The freedom or bondage of the will was the dividing line between Augustinianism and Pelagianism, and in more recent times between Calvinism and Arminianism. Reduced to simple terms, this means, that the difference involved was the affirmation or denial of the total depravity of man. In making the affirmation we shall now consider.
3. THE IMPOTENCY OF THE HUMAN WILL.
Does it lie within the power of man's will to accept or reject the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior? Granted that the Gospel is preached to the sinner, that the Holy Spirit convicts him of his lost condition, does it, in the final analysis, lie within the power of his own will to yield himself up to God? Our answer to this question defines our conception of human depravity. That man is a fallen creature all professing Christians will allow, but what many of them mean by "fallen " is often difficult to determine. The general impression seems to be that man is now mortal, that he is no longer in the condition in which he left the hands of his Creator, that he is liable to disease, that he inherits evil tendencies; but, that if he employs his powers to the best of his ability, somehow he will be happy at last. O, how far short of the sad truth ! Infirmities, sickness, even corporeal death, are but trifles in comparison with the moral and spiritual effects of the Fall! It is only by consulting the Holy Scriptures that we are able to obtain some conception of the extent of that terrible calamity.
When we say that man is totally depraved, we mean that the entrance of sin into the human constitution has affected every part and faculty of man's being. Total depravity means that man is, in spirit and soul and body, the slave of sin and the captive of the Devil-walking "according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience " (Eph. 2:2). This statement ought not to need arguing: it is a common fact of human experience. Man is unable to realize his own aspirations and materialize his own ideals. He cannot do the things that he would. There is a moral inability which paralyses him. This is proof positive that he is no free man, but instead, the slave of sin and Satan. " Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts (desires) of your father ye will do" (John 8:44) Sin is more than an act or a series of acts; it is a state or condition: it is that which lies behind and produces the acts. Sin has penetrated and permeated the whole of man's being. It has blinded the understanding, corrupted the heart. and alienated the mind from God. And the will has not escaped. The will is under the dominion of sin and Satan. Therefore, the will is not free. In short, the affections lowe as they do and the will chooses as it does because of the state of the heart, and because the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. " There is none that seeketh after God " (Rom. 3: 11).
We repeat our question: Does it lie within the power of the sinner's will to yield himself up to God? Let us attempt an answer by asking several other questions: Can water (of itself) rise above its own level? Can a clean thing come out of an unclean? Can the will reverse the whole tendency and strain of human nature? Can that which is under the dominion of sin originate that which is pure and holy? Manifestly not. If ever the will of a fallen and depraved creature is to move Godwards, a Divine power must be brought to bear upon it which will overcome the influences of sin that pull in a counter-direction. This is only another way of saying, " No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him " (John 6: 44). In other words, God's people must be made willing in the day of His power (Ps. 1l0:3). As Mr. J. N. Darby said. " If Christ came to save that which is lost, free will has no place. Not that God prevents men from receiving Christ-far from it. But even when God uses all possible inducements, all that is capable of exerting influence in the heart of man, it only serves to show that man will have none of it; that so corrupt is his heart, and so decided his will not to submit to God (however much it may be the devil who encourages him to sin) that nothing can induce him to receive the Lord, and to give up sin. If by the words.'freedom of man,' they mean that no one forces him to reject the Lord, this liberty fully exists. But if it is said that, on account of the dominion of sin, of which he is the slave, and that voluntarily, he cannot escape from his condition, and make choice of the good-then he has no liberty whatever."
The will is not sovereign; it is a servant, because influenced and controlled by the other faculties of man's being. The will is not free because the man is the slave of sin-this was clearly implied in our Lord's words, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed " (John 8:36). Man is a rational being and as such responsible and accountable to God, but to affirm that he is capable of choosing that which is spiritually good is to deny that he is totally depraved-i.e., depraved in will as in everything else. Because man's will is governed by his mind and heart, and because these have been vitiated and corrupted by sin, then it follows that if ever man is to turn or move in a Godward direction, God Himself must work in him "both to will and to do of His good pleasure " (Phil. 2:13). Man's boasted freedom is, in truth, "the bondage of corruption"; he " serves divers lusts and pleasures." Said a deeply-taught servant of God, "Man is impotent as to his will. He has no will favorable to God. I believe in free will; but then it is a will only free to act according to its nature. A dove has no will to eat carrion; a raven has no will to eat the clean food of the dove. Put the nature of the dove into the raven and it will eat the food of the dove. Satan could have no will for holiness. We speak it with reverence. God could have no will for evil. The sinner in his sinful nature could never have a will according to God. For this he must be born again "J. Denham Smith). This is precisely what we have contended for throughout this chapter-the will is regulated by the nature. Among the "decrees" of the Council of Trent (1569). which is the avowed standard of Popery, we find the following (in the Canons on Justification): " If any one shall affirm, that man's free-will, moved and excited by God, does not, by consenting, co-operate with God, the mover and exciter, so as to dispose and prepare itself for the attainment of justification; if moreover, anyone shall say, that the human will cannot refuse complying, if it pleases; but that it is unactive, and merely passive; let such an one be accursed "!
" If anyone shall affirm, that since the fall of Adam, man's free-will is lost and extinguished; or, that it is a thing titular, yea a name, without a thing, and a fiction introduced by Satan into the Church; let such an one be accursed "!
Thus, those who today insist on the free-will of the natural man believe precisely what Rome teaches on the subject!
In order for any sinner to be saved three things were indispensable: God the Father had to purpose his salvation, God the Son had to purchase it, God the Spirit has to apply it. God does more than "propose" to us. Were He only to "invite," every one of us would be lost. This is strikingly illustrated in the Old Testament. In Ezra 1:1-3 we read, " Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all His people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel." Here was an "offer" made, made to a people in captivity, affording them opportunity to leave and return to Jerusalem-God's dwelling-place. Did all Israel eagerly respond to this offer? No indeed! The vast majority were content to remain in the enemy's land. Only a " remnant " availed themselves of this overture of mercy ! And why did they? Hear the answer of Scripture: "Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all whose spirit God had stirred up, to go up to build the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem " (Ezra 1:5)! In like manner, God " stirs up " the spirits of His elect when the effectual call comes to them, and not till then do they have any willingness to respond to the Divine proclamation.
The superficial work of many of the professional evangelists of the last fifty years is largely responsible for the erroneous views now current upon the bondage of the natural man, encouraged by the laziness of those in the pew in their failure to " prove all things" (1 Thess. 5:21). The average evangelical pulpit conveys the impression that it lies wholly in the power of the sinner whether or not he shall be saved. It is said that "God has done His part, now man must do his." Alas, what can a lifeless man do, and man by nature is "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1)! If the truth were really believed, there would be more dependence upon the Holy Spirit to come in with His miracle-working power, and less confidence in our attempts to " win men for Christ." When addressing the unsaved, preachers often draw analogy between God's sending of the Gospel to the sinner, and a sick man in bed, with healing medicine on a table by his side: all he needs to do is to reach forth his hand and take it. But in order for this illustration to be in any wise true to the picture which Scripture gives us of the fallen and depraved sinner, the sick man in bed must be described as one who is blind (Eph. 4: 18) so that he cannot see the medicine, his hand paralyzed (Rom. 5:6) so that he is unable to reach forth for it, and his heart not only devoid of all confidence in the medicine but filled with hatred against the physician himself (John 15:18). O what superficial views of man's desperate plight are now entertained! Christ came here not to help those who were willing to help themselves, but to do for His people what they were incapable of doing for themselves: " To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house" (Isa. 42 :7).
Now, in conclusion, let us anticipate and dispose of the usual and inevitable objection-Why Preach the Gospel if man is Powerless to respond? Why bid the sinner come to Christ if sin has so enslaved him that he has no power in himself to come? We reply:
We do not preach the Gospel because we believe that man has a "free-will" and is therefore able to receive Christ, but we preach it because we are commanded to do so' (Mark 16:15); and though to them that perish it is foolishness, yet, " unto us which are saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1: 18). "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men " (1 Cor. 1.25). The sinner is dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2: 1), and a dead man is utterly incapable of willing anything; hence it is that " they that are in the flesh (the unregenerate) cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8).
To fleshly wisdom it appears the height of folly to preach the Gospel to those that are dead, and therefore beyond the reach of doing anything themselves. Yes, but God's ways are different from ours. It pleases God "by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe " (1 Cor. 1:21). Man may deem it folly to prophesy to "dead bones" and to say unto them, " O, ye dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord " (Ezek. 37:4). Ah! but then it is the Word of the Lord, and the words He speaks "they are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Wise men standing by the grave of Lazarus might pronounce it an evidence of insanity when the Lord addressed a dead man with the words, "Lazarus, come forth." Ah! but He who thus spake was and is Himself the Resurrection and the Life, and at His word even the dead live! We go forth to preach the Gospel, then, not because we believe that sinners have within themselves the power to receive the Savior it proclaims, but because the Gospel itself is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, and because we know that "as many as were ordained to eternal life " (Acts 13:48), shall believe (John 6: 37; 10:16 --note the "shall's"!) in God's appointed time, for it is written, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power" (Ps. 1l0.3)!
What we have set forth in this chapter is not a product of " modern thought"; no indeed, it is at direct variance with it. Men of the past few generations have departed far from the teachings of their scripturally-instructed fathers. In the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England we read, "The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God: Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us (being before-hand with us), that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will" (Article 10). In the Westminster Larger Catechism (which used to be recognized by all Presbyterian Churches) we read, "The sinfulness of that state whereinto man fell, consisteth in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of that righteousness wherein he was created, and the corruption of his nature, whereby he is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite unto all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, and that continually " (Answer to question 25). So in the Baptists' Philadelphia Confession of Faith (1742), we read, " Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto " (Chapter 9).

THE LOVE OF GOD

2005-11-10T20:12:00.000-08:00

THE LOVE OF GOD.

TO THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH. BELOVED IN THE LORD,

By Job Hupton 1762-1829

STANDING upon the verge of eternity, and feeling a desire, which I wish not to suppress, to address you, before I leave this world of boisterous wickedness, and take the joyful flight for which I have been longing and hoping nearly fifty-six years, I have taken up my pen to gratify that wish. The subject of my epistle, is the love of God. "God is love." What then is the love of God to us, but God himself loving us? May we not therefore, believe and say, that his love to us is eternal ? What he is, he ever was, and ever will be: with him there is, there can be no variation. He eternally decreed our existence. We, with all the creatures, stood before him in the mirror of his decree : he beheld and loved us. His son, whom he ordained to take our nature into personal union with himself, and to be God-man, was the prime object of his love. It was in him he loved us, and chose us to be his people, his sons, his heirs; heirs of himself', and joint heirs with his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and ordained to be for ever the head of the body, the church elect in him; and the head over all things to the church, world without end.

Eternal love was the high impulsive cause of the glorious economy of our salvation; and is the grand source whence all the sublime and endless blessings of grace and glory flow. It was the sovereign cause, and is the everlasting bond of our union with Christ ; that union is, therefore, indissoluble : who or what shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord ? Shall life, or death, or angels, or principalities, or powers, things present, or things to come, or height, or depth, or any other creature ? No; never, never. While God is God, and Christ is Christ, we must dwell in him and dwell in love.

Divine love was the cause of that everlasting covenant of the adorable eternal trinity, which is ordered in all things ; and of the oath by which both it and all things in it, all things pertaining to eternal life and godliness were irrevocably confirmed unto us in Christ Jesus. It is a radiant circle Christ, with us in himself, stands in the centre, where all its effulgent rays terminate and unite as in a focus, transfusing into us all eternal blessedness from the fulness of God. What are termed the grace, the mercy, the pity, and the kindness of the Lord, seem to be only so many modifications of the manifestation of his love, by those sovereign acts of his infinite wisdom and power, by which he effects that stupendous design of his love, which will fill all eternity with admiration and delight, the raising of many sons unto glory. This was apparently the view of the apostle Paul, when he wrote that almost unparalleled prayer in his admirable epistle to the church at Ephesus, chap. iii. 16, 17, 18, 19. That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man ; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, and be filled with all the fulness of God." Here, beloved, we have the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. Love divine, issuing from the eternal bosom, flies to our guilty world of woe, enfolds in her compassionate and omnipotent arms all the elect of mankind, of every age and rank; and returns, bearing them away to the bosom whence she emanates ; there to fix them inn their endless, blissful abode. In this divine, unequalled affair of love, the whole glorious eternal godhead skews itself before angels and men in the most delightfully imposing manner. Each illustrious person is seen in his distinct character, acting his peculiar part, and all conjointly, with eyes determinately fixed upon the object of their joint design and co-operation, the glorification of themselves in the raising to immortal glory a countless number of the poor, the wretched, the helpless, the blind, and the naked of mankind. All the attributes of deity appear on this grand occasion, shining in their magnificent splendour, and all, in the most beauteous order and delightful harmony, conspiring to facilitate and complete the transcendent design of sovereign love.

Jehovah, the father, is seen in his sovereignty, choosing and ordaining his beloved son to be the saviour of his chosen, putting them into his hands, anointing and sending him into the world, with solemn charge to lose nothing of all that he had given him, but raise it up at the last day. The son appears, and in joyful acquiescence approaches the Father, gives him his hand with his heart, and is heard to say, " Lo, I come, I delight to do thy will O my God : yea, thy law is in my heart." The Father is heard to respond, " He shall approach and draw near unto me, for who is this that engaged his heart to draw near unto me." Ps. xl. 7, 8. Jer. xxx. 21. The heavens open. The son descends. He stands upon our earth in our nature, his name is Immanuel, the brightness of his glory is veiled, it is covered with a cloud, he bears the form of a servant-he is a servant, the servant of God, the servant of man. He is our surety, our bondsman, our sponsor. He stands in our stead, under the broken law of our Maker, and is, through his Father's appointment and his own voluntary engagement, responsible for us. The keen scrutinizing eye of the law, and the stern vengeful eye of justice are fixed upon him. Love intense, and deep commiseration for men guilty and accursed, fill his bosom. He recedes not; love has determined him, and he sets his face as flint and his brow as brass. His work is before him ; he loves it, his eye, his heart, his whole soul are fixed upon it. Now he proceeds. Behold the man ! In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead substantially : the fulness of perfection, the fulness of love is in him. Let your eyes, let your hearts, be fixed. Look till your eyes sparkle with delight, and your hearts glow with love and teem with gratitude. The immaculate purity of the divine law in his heart is fully exemplified in his life. Every thought, every affection, every emotion of his soul, every accent of his lips, and every action of his body is the counterpart of the purity of its Godlike sanctity. Our Jesus loves the Lord our God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his strength, and his neighbor as himself. This, this, beloved, is our everlasting righteousness, before the eyes of infinite holiness and justice. It was eternally designed for us, and it is freely and for ever imputed unto us by love divine. This is our present, our past, our future, our eternal justification. This we may boldly plead at all times against an upbraiding conscience, against an. accusing devil, at the throne of grace, and at the throne of justice. The God to whom we are indebted for this invaluable boon, will never disown it.
Now, behold the spotless man ! He goes as a lamb to the slaughter; and is there not a cause ? Love still burns in his heart, it predominates, it reigns over every other feeling. He has undertaken our cause. He has assumed our black, our hellish crimes, and stands legally charged with our enormous guilt. Vindictive justice frowns, and determinately vows to revenge the many, the countless insults offered unto it by our daring crimes ; unsheathes its flaming sword, and waving it, sternly advances; fierce lightning flashing from its eyes, and burning coals roll clown before it, increasing at every step. The self-devoted victim, impelled by the quenchless ardor of his love, advances speechless to meet the (lire avenger, meekly receives the deadly stroke, and falls the victim of his own love and of our crimes. There he lies, breathless and extended, covered with his own pure blood. What shall we now say? We will sing over his bloodstained corpse, the death of death., He has abolished death and brought to light, life and immortality. 0 death where is thy sting ! Who shall lay any thing to our charge ? It is God that justifieth. Who shall condemn ? It is Christ that died. But see ! He lives again, he rises, he ascends, he takes his throne, and lives and reigns for ever.
From his throne he transmits his almighty spirit. Not to hover over us, with his offers, and proffers his tenders and overtures,-webs finely woven and artfully exposed, by the device of man, to allure and catch the unwary,-but to open the heart, enter it, and make it his permanent abode ; to introduce into the soul a new supernatural divine life; to produce, nourish, cherish, strengthen, and perpetuate in us, what is termed by the pen of inspiration, the new man, the inner man, and the hidden man of the heart; to illuminate the mind, and endue it with a real spiritual discernment of spiritual objects revealed in the Scriptures; especially the person, the mediation, the fulness and glory of Christ Jesus our Lord ; to create that faith, by which he is received and confided in, and by which he dwells in the heart; to shed abroad in the heart the love of God, and to root and ground the soul in the knowledge, belief, and enjoyment of that love; and, finally, to lead us, with all saints, to comprehend, the utmost that can be comprehended by created intelligences of the heights and depths, the lengths and breadths of eternal love, and thus fill us with all the fulness of God ; raise us to the summit of our appointed perfection; and place us upon the highest pinnacle of our destinated glory and felicity. Thus are the designs of eternal love fulfilled by its own miraculous operations, according to the good pleasure of the eternal Three, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in covenant to save. To whom be glory in the church, world without end. Amen.
Yours, in love,
Job Hupton

HUMAN DEPRAVITY

2005-11-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

HUMAN DEPRAVITY.

By Job Hupton

That which divines very properly call the moral law, is the immutable and eternal standard of righteousness. In exact conformity to this law, existing in the divine mind, the first man was created as the head and representative of his numerous posterity; holy, just, and good. Upon his perfect performance of all that it required, depended his life and happiness, and the life and happiness of all his sons ; and with his disobedience were inseparable connected his own and their condemnation, misery, and death.

Of all the trees in Eden he might freely eat, the tree of' the knowledge of good and evil excepted : the fruit of that tree he was forbidden, on pain of death to touch. "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat," was the grant of his munificent, Creator; " but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it," was the prohibition of his rightful sovereign in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,' Was the tremendous threatening of his awful judge. Thus the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was, by a sovereign act of the divine legislator, made the test of his obedience; and had he performed the easy duty, so justly and kindly imposed upon him, he would, by that means, have preserved entire all that innocence, dignity and happiness with which he was invested in the day of his creation, both for himself and all his posterity.

But alas ! he fell! He took, he ate, and in one fatal moment threw off his allegiance to his beneficent sovereign, fell, with all his unborn seed in his loins, from the most elevated state of' parity, honor, and felicity that could possibly be filled and enjoyed upon earth; and sunk into the deepest guilt, disgrace, and misery that could possibly be felt out of hell.
Behold now the forlorn apostate ! Once the glory of this lower creation and the intimate associate of Deity; now, to the last degree execrable, only fit for the society and fellowship of devils. Stripped of the divine image, deprived of his Maker's presence, forbidden to approach his offended Lord, justly condemned by the law which he has broken, exposed in the hand of Omnipotence, stung with connseious guilt, and smitten with keen despair, he flees, flees with confusion and precipitance, roll, that God in whom he once delighted, as the centre and source of all his joy, and essays, but in vain, to conceal, at once, himself and his guilt from the scrutinizing eye of divine omniscience. Look now on which side soever he will, nothing presents itself, for him or his posterity, but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.
The holy law, in its nature immutable and in its demands inflexible, still requires of all who are under its authority, unsullied innocence in thought, in word, in deed. But alas ! Innocence is fled, is gone ! Fled from all the human race, gone for ever, past recovery from the power of it created arm. Not even a shadow of it is to be seen in any part of our apostate nature ; all is depravity, defilement, and guilt. The understanding is darkened ; the judgment is perverted; the mind is carnal and replete with enmity against God ; the will is filled with rebellion and enslaved by Satan ; reason has lost her empire and is degraded from her excellency; the affections are vitiated and in alliance with forbidden objects; the conscience is polluted and torpid ; the heart which was chaste is become a harlot; in its pristine state righteousness lodged in it, but now thieves and murderers ; in fine, the inward parts are very wickedness; every faculty and every member is most awfully contaminated, and our whole nature teems with moral evil.
That no injustice is done to human nature in this delineation of its condition is evident from the language of infallibility. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually ;-their inward part is very wickedness ;-the wicked through the pride of their countenance will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts;-the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked;-for from within, out of the heart of plan proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, all evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness." Nor is this humiliating detail of the sins of the human heart referable to a part only of the sons of men, it has respect to the whole species. For by natural generation every father communicates to his offspring his own nature, with every innate principle he possesses. Adam begat Seth in his own likeness, after his own image; not merely in regard to his external natural form, but chiefly with respect to internal moral principle. And thus, age after age from the beginning, the corruption of human nature has passed entire from father to son, and will continue to do so to the end of the world. All, therefore, who lineally descend front Adam inherit his whole nature with its nefarious infernal principles. ''Were ten thousand stems to arise out of the same root, each would ready possess the very essence of that root; or It streams in mumerable were to issue from the same fountain, they would all alike partake of its qualities, whether salutary or pernicious. David knew and confessed that he was shapen in iniquity, and that in sin his mother conceived him. The same is true of' men, and the above humble and pathetic acknowledgement would well become the mouths of all human creatures, in every age, and in every nation of the world ; there is no inequality, no distinction here : the prince and the poor; the civilized and polite European, and the rude and savage Indian ; the inhabitant of Britain, and the inhabitant of Africa; Jews, Pagans, Mahometans, and nominal Christians ; men of every clime, of every colour, and of every distinction and rank stand upon the exactest level in regard of natural depravity and distance from God.
It is, indeed, confessed, that, in external appearance and conduct, there is at very material dissimilitude between, not only the inhabitants of different countries, but those of the same nation; nay, in thousands of instances, between the branches of the sauce family. Some spend their days, and mouths, and years, in rioting and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness, and in multiplying iniquities of the most heinous nature and the greatest magnitude, till they ruin their characters, their constitutions, and their estates; and in the end, conclude an awful series of complicated crimes, by an ignominious exit on a gibbet or block. Others observing the laws of decency and sobriety, of modest and chastity, of justice and kindness, refrain from all atrocity, extend the hand of beneficence to bless the indigent, pay strict regard to all the exteriors of religion, study to make themselves agreeable and useful in every department, pass through life with so much decorum as scarcely to merit human censure, and, at last, leave the world, beloved and applauded, leaving behind them an external moral character worthy to be imitated by all ranks in every succeeding age.
But then, this difference of conduct is not the effect of any intrinsic difference in nature in these opposite characters, but is owing, in some, to what is called good breeding, or the art of politeness, and pride in practicing; that art; in others, to religious education received in early life ; in others, to legal fears of hell and hopes of heaven; and in all, what means so ever are employed, to an all wise, all powerful, all pervading Providence which bounds the raging lusts, restrains the tumultuous passions, and checks or disposes the minds of ungodly men according to the sovereign pleasure of him, whose infinite wisdom and might, perform all his will in every part of his vast empire, making even enmity itself, with till its infernal productions in the natures of men and of devils, entirely subservient to his eternal and immutable, deep and mysterious, vast and wonderful designs : " Surely the wrath of man," yes, and of devils too, " shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain." If the unconverted refrain from the commission of' flagitious crimes, it is in consequence of divine restraint; if they perform works truly beneficial to themselves or others, they act under the sovereign influence of the divine government; yet, in both these cases, being totally ignorant of the power which moves them, and insensible of the influence under which they act, and conceiving that they are self-Moved, they attribute to themselves great merit, sacrifice to their own free will, and burn incense to their own self-sufficiency. Psa.lxxvi. 10. See also Gen. xx. 6. xxxi. 24, 29, and Gen. xxvii. 41, compared with xxxiii. 4: Exodus vii. 2, 3, 4, 5, and xii. 31, 32, 33, compared with ix. 17: also Sam. ii. 2.5. The Almighty says to the wild impetuous lusts and passions of men, as to the proud waves of the restless ocean, "Thus far shall ye go but no further, here shall ye be still." But for this, nothing would be heard but obscenity, falsehood, and blasphemy; no thing would be seen but uncleanness, ferocity, cruelty, rapine, devastation, and murder, till the whole world became a perfect Aceldama, or field of blood.
The doctrine of equal and total depravity among the sons and daughters of Adam, however incompatible with the proud and lofty notions of carnal minds respecting human purity, power and dignity, mast be maintained as truth, as truth divine most expressively attested in the sacred page, from which there can be no appeal. There we learn that the scrutinizing eve of divine omniscience takes a general survey of the huuman race ; infinite wisdom forms a just and impartial estimate of every latent quality in each individual of' human kind ; and infinite justice and faithfulness publish to all the world, the equal degeneracy and apostasy of all men. Psa.liii.2,3. "God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God: every one of them is gone back, they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." And what is asserted on the melancholy subject of human depravity by the divinely inspired Paid, in his epistle to the Romans, refers to the whole race of mankind. For having mentioned some particular characters who manifested the most pernicious principles by the most ungodly practices, he asks; "What then, are we better than they'" And replies, ``no, in no wise; for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin."
In the above appellations all the posterity of Adam is included. And the faithful apostle, without making any distinction or exception whatever, declares; "'There is none righteous, no, not one, there is none that under standeth, there is none that seeketh after God, they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no, not one; their throat is an open sepulchre, with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, the way of peace they have not known, there is no fear of God before their eves." What an affecting picture of human nature !
0, ye wise men after the flesh ! ye proud disputers of this world, who strenuously contend for the fabled purity and dignity of man, speak no more proudly, let not arrogancy come out of your lips God hath spoken ! The Infinite Eternal, at whose presence the universe is moved, and at whose look even hell trembles and is afraid, hath uttered his voice, and proclaimed to all the nations under heaven, the total depravity, the awful apostasy, and the tremendous guilt of every human tribe and individual on earth. Say not that he errs in judgment, nor think that his testimony is untrue. Remember that he is wise in heart and of infinite knowledge; a God of truth and without iniquity, Just and right in all his thoughts and all his words. He can neither deceive nor be deceived. His judgment is always according to truth, and his testimonies are very sure. Deny the truth of his testimony and you are deists ; question the infinity of his knowledge and you are atheists ; and in either case you proclaim both your ignorance and impiety ; are evidently taken by the Lord in your own craftiness, and while you profess to be supremely wise, you are truly guilty of the most consummate folly; for, in direct opposition to your intentions, You stand forth as indubitable evidence of the truth of those very things which you deny. God, long since, in the sacred Scriptures, foretold your impious denial of his word and your infernal blasphemy conceived and uttered against his wisdom and truth; and with an accuracy which, at once, bespeaks his understanding infinite, and his testimony true, has delineated your principles and depicted Your characters; as long, therefore, as we are blessed with the use of our mental powers and are capable of comparing your principles and conduct with his word, we cannot but read in you the clearest proof of his infinite knowledge and unimpeachable truth written in the Scriptures. And while either you or other, in direct contradiction to the positive language of God in the Scriptures, deny the fall of Adam and its awful consequence, the total depravity of his offspring, we shall never be in want of proof, the most incontestable, of the solemn truth you deny. Denial of the truth of God avouched in the Scriptures is the effect and evidence of enmity against the nature and will of God, and such enmity is the very quintessence of depravity; while, therefore, we have before our eves the baneful effect, how can we doubt the existence of the pernicious cause, or avoid considering the opposers of the doctrine of man's fall and depravity, as it stands revealed in the oracles of God, as undeniable witnesses of its truth, and the denial of it as among the best means of its confirmation.

HAVING BEGUN IN THE

2005-11-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

"HAVING BEGUN IN THE SPIRIT"

Andrew Murray

The words from which I wish to address you, you will find in the epistle to the Galatians, the third chapter, the third verse; let us read the second verse also: “This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish?” And then comes my text — “Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”
When we speak of the quickening or the deepening or the strengthening of the spiritual life, we are thinking of something that is feeble and wrong and sinful; and it is a great thing to take our place before God with the confession:
“Oh, God, our spiritual life is not what it should be!”
May God work that in your heart, reader.
As we look round about on the church we see so many indications of feebleness and of failure, and of sin, and of shortcoming, that we are compelled to ask: Why is it? Is there any necessity for the church of Christ to be living in such a low state? Or is it actually possible that God’s people should be living always in the joy and strength of their God?
Every believing heart must answer: It is possible.
Then comes the great question: Why is it, how is it to be accounted for, that God’s church as a whole is so feeble, and that the great majority of Christians are not living up to their privileges? There must be a reason for it. Has God not given Christ His Almighty Son to be the Keeper of every believer, to make Christ an ever-present reality, and to impart and communicate to us all that we have in Christ? God has given His Son, and God has given His Spirit. How is it that believers do not live up to their privileges?
We find in more than one of the epistles a very solemn answer to that question. There are epistles, such as the first to the Thessalonians, where Paul writes to the Christians, in effect: “I want you to grow, to abound, to increase more and more.” They were young, and there were things lacking in their faith, but their state was so far satisfactory, and gave him great joy, and he writes time after time: “I pray God that you may abound more and more; I write to you to increase more and more.” But there are other epistles where he takes a very different tone, especially the epistles to the Corinthians and to the Galatians, and he tells them in many different ways what the one reason was, that they were not living as Christians ought to live; many were under the power of the flesh. My text is one example. He reminds them that by the preaching of faith they had received the Holy Spirit. He had preached Christ to them; they had accepted that Christ, and had received the Holy Spirit in power. But what happened? Having begun in the Spirit, they tried to perfect the work that the Spirit had begun in the flesh by their own effort. We find the same teaching in the epistle to the Corinthians.
Now, we have here a solemn discovery of what the great want is in the church, of Christ. God has called the church of Christ to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the church is living for the most part in the power of human flesh, and of will and energy and effort apart from the Spirit of God. I doubt not that that is the case with many individual believers; and oh, if God will use me to give you a message from Him, my one message will be this: “If the church will return to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is her strength and her help, and if the church will return to give up everything, and wait upon God to be filled with the Spirit, her days of beauty and gladness will return, and we shall see the glory of God revealed among us.” This is my message to every individual believer: “Nothing will help you unless you come to understand that you must live every day under the power of the Holy Ghost.”
God wants you to be a living vessel in whom the power of the Spirit is to be manifested every hour and every moment of your life, and God will enable you to be that.
Now let us try to learn that this word to the Galatians teaches us — some very simple thoughts. It shows us how (1) the beginning of the Christian life is receiving the Holy Spirit. It shows us (2) what great danger there is of forgetting that we are to live by the Spirit, and not live after the flesh. It shows us (3) what are the fruits and the proofs of our seeking perfection in the flesh. And then it suggests to us (4) the way of deliverance from this state.
Receiving the Holy Spirit
First of all, Paul says: “Having begun in the Spirit.” Remember, the apostle not only preached justification by faith, but he preached something more. He preached this — the epistle is full of it — that justified men cannot live but by the Holy Spirit, and that therefore God gives to every justified man the Holy Spirit to seal him. The apostle says to them in effect more than once:
“How did you receive the Holy Spirit? Was it by the preaching of the law, or by the preaching of faith?”
He could point back to that time when there had been a mighty revival under his teaching. The power of God had been manifested, and the Galatians were compelled to confess:
“Yes, we have got the Holy Ghost: accepting Christ by faith, by faith we received the Holy Spirit.”
Now, it is to be feared that there are many Christians who hardly know that when they believed, they received the Holy Ghost. A great many Christians can say: “I received pardon and I received peace.” But if you were to ask them: “Have you received the Holy Ghost?” they would hesitate, and many, if they were to say Yes, would say it with hesitation; and they would tell you that they hardly knew what it was, since that time, to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us try and take hold of this great truth: The beginning of the true Christian life is to receive the Holy Ghost. And the work of every Christian minister is that which was the work of Paul — to remind his people that they received the Holy Ghost, and must live according to His guidance and in His power.
If those Galatians who received the Holy Spirit in power were tempted to go astray by that terrible danger of perfecting in the flesh what had been begun in the Spirit, how much more danger do those Christians run who hardly ever know that they have received the Holy Spirit, or who, if they know it as a matter of belief, hardly ever think of it and hardly ever praise God for it!
Neglecting the Holy Spirit
But now look, in the second place, at the great danger.
You all know what shunting is on a railway. A locomotive with its train may be run in a certain direction, and the points at some place may not be properly opened or closed, and unobservingly it is shunted off to the right or to the left. And if that takes place, for instance, on a dark night, the train goes in the wrong direction, and the people might never know it until they have gone some distance.
And just so God gives Christians the Holy Spirit with this intention, that every day all their life should be lived in the power of the Spirit. A man cannot live one hour a godly life unless by the power of the Holy Ghost. He may live a proper, consistent life, as people call it, an irreproachable life, a life of virtue and diligent service; but to live a life acceptable to God, in the enjoyment of God’s salvation and God’s love, to live and walk in the power of the new life — he cannot do it unless he be guided by the Holy Spirit every day and every hour.
But now listen to the danger. The Galatians received the Holy Ghost, but what was begun by the Spirit they tried to perfect in the flesh. How? They fell back again under Judaizing teachers who told them they must be circumcised. They began to seek their religion in external observances. And so Paul uses that expression about those teachers who had them circumcised, that “they sought to glory in their flesh.”
You sometimes hear the expression used, religious flesh. What is meant by that? It is simply an expression made to give utterance to this thought: My human nature and my human will and my human effort can be very active in religion, and after being converted, and after receiving the Holy Ghost, I may begin in my own strength to try to serve God.
I may be very diligent and doing a great deal, and yet all the time it is more the work of human flesh than of God’s Spirit. What a solemn thought, that man can, without noticing it, be shunted off from the line of the Holy Ghost on to the line of the flesh; that he can be most diligent and make great sacrifices, and yet it is all in the power of the human will! Ah, the great question for us to ask of God in self-examination is that we may be shown whether our religious life is lived more in the power of the flesh than in the power of the Holy Spirit. A man may be a preacher, he may work most diligently in his ministry, a man may be a Christian worker, and others may tell of him that he makes great sacrifices, and yet you can feel there is a want about it. You feel that he is not a spiritual man; there is no spirituality about his life. How many Christians there are about whom no one would ever think of saying: “What a spiritual man he is!” Ah! there is the weakness of the Church of Christ. It is all in that one word — flesh.
Now, the flesh may manifest itself in many ways. It may be manifested in fleshly wisdom. My mind may be most active about religion. I may preach or write or think or meditate, and delight in being occupied with things in God’s Book and in God’s Kingdom; and yet the power of the Holy Ghost may be markedly absent. I fear that if you take the preaching throughout the Church of Christ and ask why there is, alas! so little converting power in the preaching of the Word, why there is so much work and often so little result for eternity, why the Word has so little power to build up believers in holiness and in consecration-the answer will come: It is the absence of the power of the Holy Ghost. And why is this? There can be no other reason but that the flesh and human energy have taken the place that the Holy Ghost ought to have. That was true of the Galatians, it was true of the Corinthians. You know Paul said to them: “I cannot speak to you as to spiritual men; you ought to be spiritual men, but you are carnal.” And you know how often in the course of his epistles he had to reprove and condemn them for strife and for divisions.
Lacking the Fruit of the Holy Spirit
A third thought: What are the proofs or indications that a church like the Galatians, or a Christian, is serving God in the power of the flesh — is perfecting in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit?
The answer is very easy. Religious self-effort always ends in sinful flesh. What was the state of those Galatians? Striving to be justified by the works of the law. And yet they were quarreling and in danger of devouring one another. Count up the expressions that the apostle uses to indicate their want of love, and you will find more than twelve — envy, jealousy, bitterness, strife, and all sorts of expressions. Read in the fourth and fifth chapters what he says about that. You see how they tried to serve God in their own strength, and they failed utterly. All this religious effort resulted in failure. The power of sin and the sinful flesh got the better of them, and their whole condition was one of the saddest that could be thought of.
This comes to us with unspeakable solemnity. There is a complaint everywhere in the Christian Church of the want of a high standard of integrity and godliness, even among the professing members of Christian churches. I remember a sermon which I heard preached on commercial morality. And, oh, if we speak not only of the commercial morality or immorality, but if we go into the homes of Christians, and if we think of the life to which God has called His children, and which He enables them to live by the Holy Ghost, and if we think of how much, nevertheless, there is of unlovingness and temper and sharpness and bitterness, and if we think how much there is very often of strife among the members of churches, and how much there is of envy and jealousy and sensitiveness and pride, then we are compelled to say: “Where are marks of the presence of the Spirit of the Lamb of God?” Wanting, sadly wanting!
Many people speak of these things as though they were the natural result of our feebleness and cannot well be helped. Many people speak of these things as sins, yet have given up the hope of conquering them’. Many people speak of these things in the church around them, and do not see the least prospect of ever having the things changed. There is no prospect until there comes a radical change, until the Church of God begins to see that every sin in the believer comes from the flesh, from a fleshly life midst our religious activities, from a striving in self-effort to serve God. Until we learn to make confession, and until we begin to see, we must somehow or other get God’s Spirit in power back to His Church, we must fail. Where did the Church begin in Pentecost? There they began in the Spirit. But, alas, how the Church of the next century went off into the flesh! They thought to perfect the Church in the flesh.
Do not let us think, because the blessed Reformation restored the great doctrine of justification by faith, that the power of the Holy Spirit was then fully restored. If it is our faith that God is going to have mercy on His Church in these last ages, it will be because the doctrine and the truth about the Holy Spirit will not only be studied, but sought after with a whole heart; and not only because that truth will be sought after, but because ministers and congregations will be found bowing before God in deep abasement with one cry: “We have grieved God’s Spirit; we have tried to be Christian churches with as little as possible of God’s Spirit; we have not sought to be churches filled with the Holy Ghost.”
All the feebleness in the Church is owing to the refusal of the Church to obey its God.
And why is that so? I know your answer. You say: “We are too feeble and too helpless, and we try to obey, and we vow to obey, but somehow we fail.”
Ah, yes; you fail because you do not accept the strength of God. God alone can work out His will in you. You cannot work out God’s will, but His Holy Spirit can; and until the Church, until believers grasp this, and cease trying by human effort to do God’s will, and wait upon the Holy Spirit to come with all His omnipotent and enabling power, the Church will never be what God wants her to be, and what God is willing to make of her.
Yielding to the Holy Spirit
I come now to my last thought, the question: What is the way to restoration?
Beloved friend, the answer is simple and easy. If that train has been shunted off, there is nothing for it but to come back to the point at which it was led away. The Galatians had no other way in returning but to come back to where they had gone wrong, to come back from all religious effort in their own strength, and from seeking anything by their own work, and to yield themselves humbly to the Holy Spirit. There is no other way for us as individuals.
Is there any brother or sister whose heart is conscious: “Alas! my life knows but little of the power of the Holy Ghost”? I come to you with God’s message that you can have no conception of what your life would be in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is too high and too blessed and too wonderful, but I bring you the message that just as truly as the everlasting Son of God came to this world and wrought His wonderful works, that just as truly as on Calvary He died and wrought out your redemption by His precious blood, so, just as truly, can the Holy Spirit come into your heart that with His divine power He may sanctify you and enable you to do God’s blessed will, and fill your heart with joy and with strength. But, alas! we have forgotten, we have grieved, we have dishonored the Holy Spirit, and He has not been able to do His work. But I bring you the message: The Father in Heaven loves to fill His children with His Holy Spirit. God longs to give each one individually, separately, the power of the Holy Spirit for daily life. The command comes to us individually, unitedly. God wants us as His children to arise and place our sins before Him, and to call upon Him for mercy. Oh, are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye perfecting in the flesh that which was begun in the Spirit? Let us bow in shame, and confess before God how our fleshly religion, our self-effort, and self-confidence, have been the cause of every failure.
I have often been asked by young Christians: “Why is it that I fail so? I did so solemnly vow with my whole heart, and did desire to serve God; why have I failed?”
To such I always give the one answer: “My dear friend, you are trying to do in your own strength what Christ alone can do in you.”
And when they tell me: “I am sure I knew Christ alone could do it, I was not trusting in myself,” my answer always is:
“You were trusting in yourself or you could not have failed. If you had trusted Christ, He could not fail.”
Oh, this perfecting in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit runs far deeper through us than we know. Let us ask God to discover to us that it is only when we are brought to utter shame and emptiness that we shall be prepared to receive the blessing that comes from on high.
And so I come with these two questions. Are you living, beloved brother-minister — I ask it of every minister of the Gospel — are you living under the power of the Holy Ghost? Are you living as an anointed, Spirit-filled man in your ministry and your life before God? O brethren, our place is an awful one. We have to show people what God will do for us, not in our words and teaching, but in our life. God help us to do it!
I ask it of every member of Christ’s Church and of every believer: Are you living a life under the power of the Holy Spirit day by day, or are you attempting to live without that? Remember you cannot. Are you consecrated, given up to the Spirit to work in you and to live in you? Oh, come and confess every failure of temper, every failure of tongue however small, every failure owing to the absence of the Holy Spirit and the presence of the power of self. Are you consecrated, are you given up to the Holy Spirit?
If your answer be No, then I come with a second question — Are you willing to be consecrated? Are you willing to give up yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit?
You well know that the human side of consecration will not help you. I may consecrate myself a hundred times with all the intensity of my being, and that will not help me. What will help me is this — that God from Heaven accepts and seals the consecration.
And now are you willing to give yourselves up to the Holy Spirit? You can do it now. A great deal may still be dark and dim, and beyond what we understand, and you may feel nothing; but come. God alone can effect the change. God alone, who gave us the Holy Spirit, can restore the Holy Spirit in power into our life. God alone can “strengthen us with might by his Spirit in the inner man.” And to every waiting heart that will make the sacrifice, and give up everything, and give time to cry and pray to God, the answer will come. The blessing is not far off. Our God delights to help us. He will enable us to perfect, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, what was begun in the Spirit.

THE FRUIT OF THE SPI

2005-11-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

The Fruit of the Spirit
I want to look at the fact of a life filled with the Holy Spirit more from the practical side, and to show how this life will show itself in our daily walk and conduct.
Under the Old Testament you know the Holy Spirit often came upon men as a divine Spirit of revelation to reveal the mysteries of God, or for power to do the work of God. But He did not then dwell in them. Now, many just want the Old Testament gift of power for work, but know very little of the New Testament gift of the indwelling Spirit, animating and renewing the whole life. When God gives the Holy Spirit, His great object is the formation of a holy character. It is a gift of a holy mind and spiritual disposition, and what we need above everything else, is to say:
“I must have the Holy Spirit sanctifying my whole inner life if I am really to live for God’s glory.”
You might say that when Christ promised the Spirit to the disciples, He did so that they might have power to be witnesses. True, but then they received the Holy Ghost in such heavenly power and reality that He took possession of their whole being at once and so fitted them as holy men for doing the work with power as they had to do it. Christ spoke of power to the disciples, but it was the Spirit filling their whole being that worked the power.
I wish now to dwell upon the passage found in Galatians 5:22:
“The fruit of the Spirit is love.”
We read that “Love is the fulfilling of the law,” and my desire is to speak on love as a fruit of the Spirit with a twofold object. One is that this word may be a searchlight in our hearts, and give us a test by which to try all our thoughts about the Holy Spirit and all our experience of the holy life. Let us try ourselves by this word. Has this been our daily habit, to seek the being filled with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of love? “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” Has it been our experience that the more we have of the Holy Spirit the more loving we become? In claiming the Holy Spirit we should

YE ARE THE BRANCHES

2005-11-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

YE ARE THE BRANCHES”
An Address to Christian Workers

Everything depends on our being right ourselves in Christ. If I want good apples, I must have a good apple tree; and if I care for the health of the apple tree, the apple tree will give me good apples. And it is just so with our Christian life and work. If our life with Christ be right, all will come right. There may be the need of instruction and suggestion and help and training in the different departments of the work; all that has value. But in the long run, the greatest essential is to have the full life in Christ — in other words, to have Christ in us, working through us. I know how much there often is to disturb us, or to cause anxious questionings; but the Master has such a blessing for every one of us, and such perfect peace and rest, and such joy and strength, if we can only come into, and be kept in, the right attitude toward Him.
I will take my text from the parable of the Vine and the Branches, in John 15:5: “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” Especially these words: “Ye are the branches.”
What a simple thing it is to be a branch, the branch of a tree, or the branch of a vine! The branch grows out of the vine, or out of the tree, and there it lives and grows, and in due time, bears fruit. It has no responsibility except just to receive from the root and stem sap and nourishment. And if we only by the Holy Spirit knew our relationship to Jesus Christ, our work would be changed into the brightest and most heavenly thing upon earth. Instead of there ever being soul-weariness or exhaustion, our work would be like a new experience, linking us to Jesus as nothing else can. For, alas! is it not often true that our work comes between us and Jesus? What folly! The very work that He has to do in me, and I for Him, I take up in such a way that it separates me from Christ. Many a laborer in the vineyard has complained that he has too much work, and not time for close communion with Jesus, and that his usual work weakens his inclination for prayer, and that his too much intercourse with men darkens the spiritual life. Sad thought, that the bearing of fruit should separate the branch from the vine! That must be because we have looked upon our work as something other than the branch bearing fruit. May God deliver us from every false thought about the Christian life.
Now, just a few thoughts about this blessed branch-life.
Absolute Dependence
In the first place, it is a life of absolute dependence. The branch has nothing; it just depends upon the vine for everything. Absolute dependence is one of the most solemn and precious of thoughts. A great German theologian wrote two large volumes some years ago to show that the whole of Calvin’s theology is summed up in that one principle of absolute dependence upon God; and he was right. Another great writer has said that absolute, unalterable dependence upon God alone is the essence of the religion of angels, and should be that of men also. God is everything to the angels, and He is willing to be everything to the Christian. If I can learn every moment of the day to depend upon God, everything will come right. You will get the higher life if you depend absolutely upon God.
Now, here we find it with the vine and the branches. Every vine you ever see, or every bunch of grapes that comes upon your table, let it remind you that the branch is absolutely dependent on the vine. The vine has to do the work, and the branch enjoys the fruit of it.
What has the vine to do? It has to do a great work. It has to send its roots out into the soil and hunt under the ground — the roots often extend a long way out — for nourishment, and to drink in the moisture. Put certain elements of manure in certain directions, and the vine sends its roots there, and then in its roots or sterns it turns the moisture and manure into that special sap which is to make the fruit that is borne. The vine does the work, and the branch has just to receive from the vine the sap, which is changed into grapes. I have been told that at Hampton Court, London, there is a vine that sometimes bore a couple of thousand bunches of grapes, and people were astonished at its large growth and rich fruitage. Afterward it was discovered what was the cause of it. Not so very far away runs the River Thames, and the vine had stretched its roots away hundreds of yards under the ground, until it had come to the riverside, and there in all the rich slime of the riverbed it had found rich nourishment, and obtained moisture, and the roots had drown the sap all that distance up and up into the vine, and as a result there was the abundant, rich harvest. The vine had the work to do, and the branches had just to depend upon the vine, and receive what it gave.
Is that literally true of my Lord Jesus? Must I understand that when I have to work, when I have to preach a sermon, or address a Bible class, or to go out and visit the poor, neglected ones, that all the responsibility of the work is on Christ?
That is exactly what Christ wants you to understand. Christ wants that in all your work, the very foundation should be the simple, blessed consciousness: Christ must care for all.
And how does He fulfill the trust of that dependence? He does it by sending down the Holy Spirit — not now and then only as a special gift, for remember the relationship between the vine and the branches is such that hourly, daily, unceasingly there is the living connection maintained. The sap does not flow for a time, and then stop, and then flow again, but from moment to moment the sap flows from the vine to the branches. And just so, my Lord Jesus wants me to take that blessed position as a worker, and morning by morning and day by day and hour by hour and step by step, in every work I have to go out to just to abide before Him in the simple utter helplessness of one who knows nothing, and is nothing, and can do nothing. Oh, beloved workers, study that word nothing. You sometimes sing: “Oh, to be nothing, nothing”; but have you really studied that word and prayed every day, and worshiped God, in the light of it? Do you know the blessedness of that word nothing?
If I am something, then God is not everything; but when I become nothing, God can become all, and the everlasting God in Christ can reveal Himself fully. That is the higher life. We need to become nothing. Someone has well said that the seraphim and cherubim are flames of fire because they know they are nothing, and they allow God to put His fullness and His glory and brightness into them. Oh, become nothing in deep reality, and, as a worker, study only one thing-to become poorer and lower and more helpless, that Christ may work all in you.
Workers, here is your first lesson: learn to be nothing, learn to be helpless. The man who has got something is not absolutely dependent; but the man who has got nothing is absolutely dependent. Absolute dependence upon God is the secret of all power in work. The branch has nothing but what it gets from the vine, and you and I can have nothing but what we get from Jesus.
Deep Restfulness
But second, the life of the branch is not only a life of entire dependence, but of deep restfulness.
That little branch, if it could think, and if it could feel, and if it could speak — that branch away in Hampton Court vine, or on some of the million vines that we have in South Africa, in our sunny land — if we could have a little branch here today to talk to us, and if we could say: “Come, branch of the vine, I want to learn from you how I can be a true branch of the living Vine,” what would it answer? The little branch would whisper:
“Man, I hear that you are wise, and I know that you can do a great many wonderful things. I know you have much strength and wisdom given to you but I have one lesson for you. With all your hurry and effort in Christ’s work you never prosper. The first thing you need is to come and rest in your Lord Jesus. That is what I do. Since I grew out of that vine I have spent years and years, and all I have done is just to rest in the vine. When the time of spring came I had no anxious thought or care. The vine began to pour its sap into me, and to give the bud and leaf. And when the time of summer came I had no care, and in the great heat I trusted the vine to bring moisture to keep me fresh. And in the time of harvest, when the owner came to pluck the grapes, I had no care. If there was anything in the grapes not good, the owner never blamed the branch, the blame was always on the vine. And if you would be a true branch of Christ, the living Vine, just rest on Him. Let Christ bear the responsibility.”
You say: “Won’t that make me slothful?”
I tell you it will not. No one who learns to rest upon the living Christ can become slothful, for the closer your contact with Christ the more of the Spirit of His zeal and love will be borne in upon you. But, oh, begin to work in the midst of your entire dependence by adding to that deep restfulness. A man sometimes tries and tries to be dependent upon Christ, but he worries himself about this absolute dependence; he tries and he cannot get it. But let him sink down into entire restfulness every day.

In Thy strong hand I lay me down.
So shall the work be done;
For who can work so wondrously
As the Almighty One?

Worker, take your place every day at the feet of Jesus, in the blessed peace and rest that come from the knowledge —

I have no care, my cares are His!
I have no fear, He cares for all my fears.

Come, children of God, and understand that it is the Lord Jesus who wants to work through you. You complain of the want of fervent love. It will come from Jesus. He will give the divine love in your heart with which you can love people. That is the meaning of the assurance: “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”; and of that other word: “The love of Christ constraineth us.” Christ can give you a fountain of love, so that you cannot help loving the most wretched and the most ungrateful, or those who have wearied you hitherto. Rest in Christ, who can give wisdom and strength, and you do not know how that restfulness will often prove to be the very best part of your message. You plead with people and you argue, and they get the idea : “There is a man arguing and striving with me.” They only feel: “Here are two men dealing with each other.” But if you will let the deep rest of God come over you, the rest in Christ Jesus, the peace and rest and holiness of Heaven, that restfulness will bring a blessing to the heart, even more than the words you speak.
Much Fruitfulness
But third, the branch teaches a lesson of much fruitfulness.
The Lord Jesus Christ repeated that word fruit often in that parable. He spoke, first, of fruit, and then of more fruit, and then of much fruit. Yes, you are ordained not only to bear fruit, but to bear much fruit. “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” In the first place, Christ said: “I am the Vine, and my Father is the Husbandman. My Father is the Husbandman who has charge of me and you.” He who will watch over the connection between Christ and the branches is God; and it is in the power of God through Christ we are to bear fruit.
Oh, Christians, you know this world is perishing for the want of workers. And it wants not only more workers — the workers are saying, some more earnestly than others: “We need not only more workers, but we need our workers to have a new power, a different life; that we workers should be able to bring more blessing.” Children of God, I appeal to you. You know what trouble you take, say, in a case of sickness. You have a beloved friend apparently in danger of death, and nothing can refresh that friend so much as a few grapes, and they are out of season; but what trouble you will take to get the grapes that are to be the nourishment of this dying friend! And, oh, there are around you people who never go to church, and so many who go to church, but do not know Christ. And yet the heavenly grapes, the grapes of Eshcol, the grapes of the heavenly Vine are not to be had at any price, except as the child of God bears them out of his inner life in fellowship with Christ. Except the children of God are filled with the sap of the heavenly Vine, except they are filled with the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus, they cannot bear much of the real heavenly grape. We all confess there is a great deal of work, a great deal of preaching and teaching and visiting, a great deal of machinery, a great deal of earnest effort of every kind; but there is not much manifestation of the power of God in it.
What is wanting? There is wanting the close connection between the worker and the heavenly Vine. Christ, the heavenly Vine, has blessings that He could pour on tens of thousands who are perishing. Christ, the heavenly Vine, has power to provide the heavenly grapes. But “Ye are the branches,” and you cannot bear heavenly fruit unless you are in close connection with Jesus Christ.
Do not confound work and fruit. There may be a good deal of work for Christ that is not the fruit of the heavenly Vine. Do not seek for work only. Oh! study this question of fruit-bearing. It means the very life and the very power and the very spirit and the very love within the heart of the Son of God — it means the heavenly Vine Himself coming into your heart and mine.
You know there are different sorts of grapes, each with a different name, and every vine provides exactly that peculiar aroma and juice which gives the grape its particular flavor and taste. just so, there is in the heart of Christ Jesus a life, and a love, and a Spirit, and a blessing, and a power for men, that are entirely heavenly and divine, and that will come down into our hearts. Stand in close connection with the heavenly Vine and say:
“Lord Jesus, nothing less than the sap that flows through Thyself, nothing less than the Spirit of Thy divine life is what we ask. Lord Jesus, I pray Thee let Thy Spirit flow through me in all my work for Thee.”
I tell you again that the sap of the heavenly Vine is nothing but the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the life of the heavenly Vine, and what you must get from Christ is nothing less than a strong inflow of the Holy Spirit. You need it exceedingly, and you want nothing more than that. Remember that. Do not expect Christ to give a bit of strength here, and a bit of blessing yonder, and a bit of help over there. As the vine does its work in giving its own peculiar sap to the branch, so expect Christ to give His own Holy Spirit into your heart, and then you will bear much fruit. And if you have only begun to bear fruit, and are listening to the word of Christ in the parable, “more fruit,” “much fruit,” remember that in order that you should bear more fruit you just require more of Jesus in your fife and heart.
We ministers of the Gospel, how we are in danger of getting into a condition of work, work, work! And we pray over it, but the freshness and buoyancy and joy of the heavenly life are not always present. Let us seek to understand that the life of the branch is a life of much fruit, because it is a life rooted in Christ, the living, heavenly Vine.
Close Communion
And fourth, the life of the branch is a life of close communion.
Let us again ask: What has the branch to do? You know that precious, inexhaustible word that Christ used: Abide. Your life is to be an abiding life. And how is the abiding to be? It is to be just like the branch in the vine, abiding every minute of the day. There are the branches, in close communion, in unbroken communion, with the vine, from January to December. And cannot I live every day — it is to me an almost terrible thing that we should ask the question — cannot I live in abiding communion with the heavenly Vine?
You say: “But I am so much occupied with other things.”
You may have ten hours’ hard work daily, during which your brain has to be occupied with temporal things; God orders it so. But the abiding work is the work of the heart, not of the brain, the work of the heart clinging to and resting in Jesus, a work in which the Holy Spirit links us to Christ Jesus. Oh, do believe that deeper down than the brain, deep down in the inner life, you can abide in Christ, so that every moment you are free the consciousness will Come:
“Blessed Jesus, I am still in Thee.”
If you will learn for a time to put aside other work and to get into this abiding contract with the heavenly Vine, you will find that fruit will come.
What is the application to our life of this abiding communion? What does it mean?
It means close fellowship with Christ in secret prayer. I am sure there are Christians who do long for the higher fife, and who sometimes have got a great blessing, and have at times found a great inflow of heavenly joy and a great outflow of heavenly gladness; and yet after a time it has passed away. They have not understood that close personal actual communion with Christ is an absolute necessity for daily life. Take time to be alone with Christ. Nothing in Heaven or earth can free you from the necessity for that, if you are to be happy and holy Christians.
Oh! how many Christians look upon it as a burden and a tax, and a duty, and a difficulty to be often alone with God! That is the great hindrance to our Christian life everywhere. We need more quiet fellowship with God, and I tell you in the name of the heavenly Vine that you cannot be healthy branches, branches into which the heavenly sap can flow, unless you take plenty of time for communion with God. If you are not willing to sacrifice time to get alone with Him, and to give Him time every day to work in you, and to keep up the link of connection between you and Himself, He cannot give you that blessing of His unbroken fellowship. Jesus Christ asks you to live in close communion with Him. Let every heart say: “O, Christ, it is this I long for, it is this I choose.” And He will gladly give it to you.
Absolute Surrender
And then finally, the life of the branch is a life of absolute surrender.
This word, absolute surrender, is a great and solemn word, and I believe we do not understand its meaning. But yet the little branch preaches it.
“Have you anything to do, little branch, besides bearing grapes?”
“No, nothing.”
“Are you fit for nothing?”
Fit for nothing! The Bible says that a bit of vine cannot even be used as a pen; it is fit for nothing but to be burned.
“And now, what do you understand, little branch, about your relationship to the vine?”
“My relationship is just this: I am utterly given up to the vine, and the vine can give me as much or as little sap as it chooses. Here I am at its disposal and the vine can do with me what it likes.”
Oh, friends, we need this absolute surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. The more I speak, the more I feel that this is one of the most difficult points to make clear, and one of the most important and needful points to explain — what this absolute surrender is. It is often an easy thing for a man or a number of men to come out and offer themselves up to God for entire consecration, and to say: “Lord, it is my desire to give up myself entirely to Thee.” That is of great value, and often brings very rich blessing. But the one question I ought to study quietly is What is meant by absolute surrender?
It means that, as literally as Christ was given up entirely to God, I am given up entirely to Christ. Is that too strong? Some think so. Some think that never can be; that just as entirely and absolutely as Christ gave up His life to do nothing but seek the Father’s pleasure, and depend on the Father absolutely and entirely, I am to do nothing but to seek the pleasure of Christ. But that is actually true. Christ Jesus came to breathe His own Spirit into us, to make us find our very highest happiness in living entirely for God, just as He did. Oh, beloved brethren, if that is the case, then I ought to say:
“Yes, as true as it is of that little branch of the vine, so true, by God’s grace, I would have it to be of me. I would live day by day that Christ may be able to do with me what He will.”
Ah! here comes the terrible mistake that lies at the bottom of so much of our own religion. A man thinks:
“I have my business and family duties, and my relationships as a citizen, and all this I cannot change. And now alongside all this I am to take in religion and the service of God, as something that will keep me from sin. God help me to perform my duties properly!”
This is not right. When Christ came, He came and bought the sinner with His blood. If there was a slave market here and I were to buy a slave, I should take that slave away to my own house from his old surroundings, and he would live at my house as my personal property, and I could order him about all the day. And if he were a faithful slave, he would live as having no will and no interests of his own, his one care being to promote the well-being and honor of his master. And in like manner I, who have been bought with the blood of Christ, have been bought to live every day with the one thought — How can I please my Master?
Oh, we find the Christian life so difficult because we seek for God’s blessing while we live in our own will. We should be glad to live the Christian life according to our own liking. We make our own plans and choose our own work, and then we ask the Lord Jesus to come in and take care that sin shall not conquer us too much, and that we shall not go too far wrong; we ask Him to come in and give us so much of His blessing. But our relationship to Jesus ought to be such that we are entirely at His disposal, and every day come to Him humbly and straightforwardly and say:
“Lord, is there anything in me that is not according to Thy will, that has not been ordered by Thee, or that is not entirely given up to Thee?”
Oh, if we would wait and wait patiently, I tell you what the result would be. There would spring up a relationship between us and Christ so close and so tender that we should afterward be amazed at how we formerly could have lived with the idea: “I am surrendered to Christ.” We should feel how far distant our intercourse with Him had previously been, and that He can, and does indeed, come and take actual possession of us, and gives unbroken fellowship all the day. The branch calls us to absolute surrender.
I do not speak now so much about the giving up of sins. There are people who need that, people who have got violent tempers, bad habits, and actual sins which they from time to time commit, and which they have never given up into the very bosom of the Lamb of God. I pray you, if you are branches of the living Vine, do not keep one sin back. I know there are a great many difficulties about this question of holiness. I know that all do not think exactly the same with regard to it. That would be to me a matter of comparative indifference if I could see that all are honestly longing to be free from every sin. But I am afraid that unconsciously there are in hearts often compromises with the idea that we cannot be without sin, we must sin a little every day; we cannot help it. Oh, that people would actually cry to God: “Lord, do keep me from sin!” Give yourself utterly to Jesus, and ask Him to do His very utmost for you in keeping you from sin.
There is a great deal in our work, in our church and our surroundings that we found in the world when we were born into it, and it has grown all around us, and we think that it is all right, it cannot be changed. We do not come to the Lord Jesus and ask Him about it. Oh! I advise you, Christians, bring everything into relationship with Jesus and say:
“Lord, everything in my life has to be in most complete harmony with my position as a branch of Thee, the blessed Vine.”
Let your surrender to Christ be absolute. I do not understand that word surrender fully; it gets new meanings every now and then; it enlarges immensely from time to time. But I advise you to speak it out: “Absolute surrender to Thee, O Christ, is what I have chosen.” And Christ will show you what is not according to His mind, and lead you on to deeper and higher blessedness.
In conclusion, let me gather up all in one sentence. Christ Jesus said: “I am the Vine, ye are the branches.” In other words: “I, the living One who have so completely given myself to you, am the Vine. You cannot trust me too much. I am the Almighty Worker, full of a divine life and power.” You are the branches of the Lord Jesus Christ. If there is in your heart the consciousness that you are not a strong, healthy, fruit-bearing branch, not closely linked with Jesus, not living in Him as you should be — then listen to Him say: “I am the Vine, I will receive you, I will draw you to myself, I will bless you, I will strengthen you, I will fill you with my Spirit. I, the Vine, have taken you to be my branches, I have given myself utterly to you; children, give yourselves utterly to me. I have surrendered myself as God absolutely to you; I became man and died for you that I might be entirely yours. Come and surrender yourselves entirely to be mine.”
What shall our answer be? Oh, let it be a prayer from the depths of our heart, that the living Christ may take each one of us and link us close to Himself. Let our prayer be that He, the living Vine, shall so link each of us to Himself that we shall go away with our hearts singing: “He is my Vine, and I am His branches — I want nothing more — now I have the everlasting Vine.” Then, when you get alone with Him, worship and adore Him, praise and trust Him, love Him and wait for His love. “Thou art my Vine, and I am Thy branch. It is enough, my soul is satisfied.”
Glory to His blessed name!

KEPT BY THE POWER OF

2005-11-09T20:57:00.000-08:00

KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD

Andrew Murray

The words from which I speak, you will find in I Peter 1:5. The third, fourth and fifth verses are: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which ... hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible ... reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” The words of my text are: “Kept by the power of God through faith.”
There we have two wonderful, blessed truths about the keeping by which a believer is kept unto salvation. One truth is, Kept by the power of God; and the other truth is, Kept through faith. We should look at the two sides — at God’s side and His almighty power, offered to us to be our Keeper every moment of the day; and at the human side, we having nothing to do but in faith to let God do His keeping work. We are begotten again to an inheritance kept in Heaven for us; and we are kept here on earth by the power of God. We see there is a double keeping — the inheritance kept for me in Heaven, and I on earth kept for the inheritance there.
Now, as to the first part of this keeping, there is no doubt and no question. God keeps the inheritance in Heaven very wonderfully and perfectly, and it is waiting there safely. And the same God keeps me for the inheritance. That is what I want to understand.
You know it is very foolish of a father to take great trouble to have an inheritance for his children, and to keep it for them, if he does not keep them for it. What would you think of a man spending his whole time and making every sacrifice to amass money, and as he gets his tens of thousands, you ask him why it is that he sacrifices himself so, and his answer is: “I want to leave my children a large inheritance, and I am keeping it for them” — if you were then to hear that that man takes no trouble to educate his children, that he allows them to run upon the street wild, and to go on in paths of sin and ignorance and folly, what would you think of him? Would not you say: “Poor man! he is keeping an inheritance for his children, but he is not keeping or preparing his children for the inheritance”! And there are so many Christians who think: “My God is keeping the inheritance for me”; but they cannot believe: “My God is keeping me for that inheritance.” The same power, the same love, the same God doing the double work.
Now, I want to speak about a work God does upon us — keeping us for the inheritance. I have already said that we have two very simple truths: the one the divine side — we are kept by the power of God; the other, the human side — we are kept through faith.
Kept by the Power of God
Look at the divine side: Christians are kept by the power of God.
Keeping Includes All
Think, first of all, that this keeping is all-inclusive.
What is kept? You are kept. How much of you? The whole being. Does God keep one part of you and not another? No. Some people have an idea that this is a sort of vague, general keeping, and that God will keep them in such a way that when they die they will get to Heaven. But they do not apply that word kept to everything in their being and nature. And yet that is what God wants.
Here I have a watch. Suppose that this watch had been borrowed from a friend, and he said to me:
“When you go to Europe, I will let you take it with you, but mind you keep it safely and bring it back.”
And suppose I damaged the watch, and had the hands broken, and the face defaced, and some of the wheels and springs spoiled, and took it back in that condition, and handed it to my friend; he would say:
“Ah, but I gave you that watch on condition that you would keep it.”
“Have I not kept it? There is the watch.”
“But I did not want you to keep it in that general way, so that you should bring me back only the shell of the watch, or the remains. I expected you to keep every part of it.”
And so God does not want to keep us in this general way, so that at the last, somehow or other, we shall. be saved as by fire, and just get into Heaven. But the keeping power and the love of God applies to every particular of our being.
There are some people who think God will keep them in spiritual things, but not in temporal things. This latter, they say, lies outside of His line. Now, God sends you to work in the world, but He did not say: “I must now leave you to go and earn your own money, and to get your livelihood for yourself.” He knows you are not able to keep yourself. But God says: “My child, there is no work you are to do, and no business in which you are engaged, and not a cent which you are to spend, but I, your Father, will take that up into my keeping.” God not only cares for the spiritual, but for the temporal also. The greater part of the life of many people must be spent, sometimes eight or nine or ten hours a day, amid the temptations and distractions of business; but God will care for you there. The keeping of God includes all.
There are other people who think: “Ah! in time of trial God keeps me, but in times of prosperity I do not need His keeping; then I forget Him and let Him go.” Others, again, think the very opposite. They think: “In time of prosperity, when things are smooth and quiet, I am able to cling to God, but when heavy trials come, somehow or other my will rebels, and God does not keep me then.”
Now, I bring you the message that in prosperity as in adversity, in the sunshine as in the dark, your God is ready to keep you all the time.
Then again, there are others who think of this keeping thus: “God will keep me from doing very great wickedness, but there are small sins I cannot expect God to keep me from. There is the sin of temper. I cannot expect God to conquer that.”
When you hear of some man who has been tempted and gone astray or fallen into drunkenness or murder, you thank God for His keeping power.
“I might have done the same as that man,” you say, “if God had not kept me.” And you believe He kept you from drunkenness and murder.
And why do you not need believe that God can keep you from outbreaks of temper? You thought that this was of less importance; you did not remember that the great commandment of the New Testament is — “Love one another as I have loved you.” And when your temper and hasty judgment and sharp words came out, you sinned against the highest law — the law of God’s love. And yet you say: “God will not, God cannot” — no, you will not say, God cannot; but you say, “God does not keep me from that.” You perhaps say: “He can; but there is something in me that cannot attain to it, and which God does not take away.”
I want to ask you, Can believers live a holier life than is generally lived? Can believers experience the keeping power of God all the day, to keep them from sin? Can believers be kept in fellowship with God? And I bring you a message from the Word of God, in these words: Kept by the power of God. There is no qualifying clause to them. The meaning is, that if you will entrust yourself entirely and absolutely to the omnipotence of God, He will delight to keep you.
Some people think that they never can get so far as that every word of their mouth should be to the glory of God. But it is what God wants of them, it is what God expects of them. God is willing to set a watch at the door of their mouth, and if God will do that, cannot He keep their tongue and their lips? He can; and that is what God is going to do for them that trust Him. God’s keeping is all-inclusive, and let everyone who longs to live a holy life think out all their needs, and all their weaknesses, and all their shortcomings, and all their sins, and say deliberately: “Is there any sin that my God cannot keep me from?” And the heart will have to answer: “No; God can keep me from every sin.”
Keeping Requires Power
Second, if you want to understand this keeping, remember that it is not only an all-inclusive keeping, but it is an almighty keeping.
I want to get that truth burned into my soul; I want to worship God until my whole heart is filled with the thought of His omnipotence. God is almighty, and the Almighty God offers Himself to work in my heart, to do the work of keeping me; and I want to get linked with Omnipotence, or rather, linked to the Omnipotent One, to the living God, and to have my place in the hollow of His hand. You read the Psalms, and you think of the wonderful thoughts in many of the expressions that David uses; as, for instance, when he speaks about God being our God, our Fortress, our Refuge, our strong Tower, our Strength and our Salvation. David had very wonderful views of how the everlasting God is Himself the hiding place of the believing soul, and of how He takes the believer and keeps him in the very hollow of His hand, in the secret of His pavilion, under the shadow of His wings, under His very feathers. And there David lived. And oh, we who are the children of Pentecost, we who have known Christ and His blood and the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven, why is it we know so little of what it is to walk tremblingly step by step with the Almighty God as our Keeper?
Have you ever thought that in every action of grace in your heart you have the whole omnipotence of God engaged to bless you? When I come to a man and he bestows upon me a gift of money, I get it and go away with it. He has given me something of his; the rest he keeps for himself. But that is not the way with the power of God. God can part with nothing of His own power, and therefore I can experience the power and goodness of God only so far as I am in contact and fellowship with Himself; and when I come into contact and fellowship with Himself, I come into contact and fellowship with the whole omnipotence of God, and have the omnipotence of God to help me every day.
A son has, perhaps, a very rich father, and as the former is about to commence business the father says: “You can have as much money as you want for your undertaking.” All the father has is at the disposal of the son. And that is the way with God, your Almighty God. You can hardly take it in; you feel yourself such a little worm. His omnipotence needed to keep a little worm! Yes, His omnipotence is needed to keep every little worm that lives in the dust, and also to keep the universe, and therefore His omnipotence is much more needed in keeping your soul and mine from the power of sin.
Oh, if you want to grow in grace, do learn to begin here. In all your judgings and meditations and thoughts and deeds and questionings and studies and prayers, learn to be kept by your Almighty God. What is Almighty God not going to do for the child that trusts Him? The Bible says: “Above all that we can ask or think.” It is Omnipotence you must learn to know and trust, and then you will live as a Christian ought to live. How little we have learned to study God, and to understand that a godly life is a life full of God, a life that loves God and waits on Him, and trusts Him, and allows Him to bless it! We cannot do the will of God except by the power of God. God gives us the first experience of His power to prepare us to long for more, and to come and claim all that He can do. God help us to trust Him every day.
Keeping Is Continuous
Another thought. This keeping is not only all-inclusive and omnipotent, but also continuous and unbroken. I
People sometimes say: “For a week or a month God has kept me very wonderfully: I have lived in the light of His countenance, and I cannot say what joy I have not had in fellowship with Him. He has blessed me in my work for others. He has given me souls, and at times I felt as if I were carried heavenward eagle wings. But it did not continue. It was too good; it could not last.” And some say: “It was necessary that I should fall to keep me humble.” And others say: “I know it was my own fault; but somehow you cannot always live up in the heights.”
Oh, beloved, why is it? Can there by any reason why the keeping of God should not be continuous and unbroken? just think. All life is in unbroken continuity. If my life were stopped for half an hour I would be dead, and my life gone. Life is a continuous thing, and the life of God is the life of His Church, and the life of God is His almighty power working in us. And God comes to us as the Almighty One, and without any condition He offers to be my Keeper, and His keeping means that day by day, moment by moment, God is going to keep us.
If I were to ask you the question: “Do you think God is able to keep you one day from actual transgression?” you would answer: “I not only know He is able to do it, but I think He has done it. There have been days in which He has kept my heart in His holy presence, when, though I have always had a sinful nature within me, He has kept me from conscious, actual transgression.”
Now, if He can do that for an hour or a day, why not for two days? Oh! let us make God’s omnipotence as revealed in His Word the measure of our expectations. Has God not said in His Word: “I, the Lord, do keep it, and will water it every moment”? What can that mean? Does “every moment” mean every moment? Did God promise of that vineyard or red wine that every moment He would water it so that the heat of the sun and the scorching wind might never dry it up? Yes. In South Africa they sometimes make a graft, and above it they tie a bottle of water, so that now and then there shall be a drop to saturate what they have put about it. And so the moisture is kept there unceasingly until the graft has had time to stroke, and resist the heat of the sun.
Will our God, in His tenderhearted love toward us, not keep us every moment when He has promised to do so? Oh! if we once got hold of the thought: Our whole religious life is to be God’s doing — “It is God that worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure” — when once we get faith to expect that from God, God will do all for us.
The keeping is to be continuous. Every morning God will meet you as you wake. It is not a question: If I forgot to wake in the morning with the thought of. Him, what will come of it? If you trust your waking to God, God will meet you in the morning as you wake with His divine sunshine and love, and He will give you the consciousness that through the day you have got God to take charge of you continuously with His almighty power. And God will meet you the next day and every day; and never mind if in the practice of fellowship there comes failure sometimes. If you maintain your position and say: “Lord, I am going to expect Thee to do Thy utmost, and I am going to trust Thee day by day to keep me absolutely,” your faith will grow stronger and stronger, and you will know the keeping power of God in unbrokenness.
Kept Through Faith
And now the other side — Believing. “Kept by the power of God through faith.” How must we look at this faith?
Faith Implies Helplessness
Let me say, first of all, that this faith means utter impotence and helplessness before God.
At the bottom of all faith there is a feeling of helplessness. If I have a bit of business to transact, perhaps to buy a house, the conveyancer must do the work of getting the transfer of the property in my name, and making all the arrangements. I cannot do that work, and in trusting that agent I confess I cannot do it. And so faith always means helplessness. In many cases it means: I can do it with a great deal of trouble, but another can do it better. But in most cases it is utter helplessness; another must do it for me. And that is the secret of the spiritual life. A man must learn to say: “I give up everything; I have tried and longed, and thought and prayed, but failure has come. God has blessed me and helped me, but still, in the long run, there has been so much of sin and sadness.” What a change comes when a man is thus broken down into utter helplessness and self-despair, and says: “I can do nothing!”
Remember Paul. He was living a blessed life, and he had been taken up into the third Heaven, and then the thorn in the flesh came, “a messenger of Satan to buffet me.” And what happened? Paul could not understand it, and he prayed the Lord three times to take it away; but the Lord said, in effect:
“No; it is possible that you might exalt yourself, and therefore I have sent you this trial to keep you weak and humble.”
And Paul then learned a lesson that he never forgot, and that was — to rejoice in his infirmities. He said that the weaker he was the better it was for him, for when he was weak, he was strong in his Lord Christ.
Do you want to enter what people call “the higher life”? Then go a step lower down. I remember Dr. Boardman telling how that once he was invited by a gentleman to go to see some works where they made fine shot, and I believe the workmen did so by pouring down molten lead from a great height. This gentleman wanted to take Dr. Boardman up to the top of the tower to see how the work was done. The doctor came to the tower, he entered by the door, and began going upstairs; but when he had gone a few steps the gentleman called out:
“That is the wrong way. You must come down this way; that stair is locked up.”
The gentleman took him downstairs a good many steps, and there an elevator was ready to take him to the top; and he said:
“I have learned a lesson that going down is often the best way to get up.”
Ah, yes, God will have to bring us very low down; there will have to come upon us a sense of emptiness and despair and nothingness. It is when we sink down in utter helplessness that the everlasting God will reveal Himself in His power, and that our hearts will learn to trust God alone.
What is it that keeps us from trusting Him perfectly?
Many a one says: “I believe what you say, but there is one difficulty. If my trust were perfect and always abiding, all would come right, for I know God will honor trust. But how am I to get that trust?”
My answer is: “By the death of self. The great hindrance to trust is self-effort. So long as you have got your own wisdom and thoughts and strength, you cannot fully trust God. But when God breaks you down, when everything begins to grow dim before your eyes, and you see that you understand nothing, then God is coming nigh, and if you will bow down in nothingness and wait upon God, He will become all.”
As long as we are something, God cannot be all, and His omnipotence cannot do its full work. That is the beginning of faith — utter despair of self, a ceasing from man and everything on earth, and finding our hope in God alone.
Faith Is Rest
And then, next, we must understand that faith is rest.
In the beginning of the faith-life, faith is struggling; but as long as faith is struggling, faith has not attained its strength. But when faith in its struggling gets to the end of itself, and just throws itself upon God and rests on Him, then comes joy and victory.
Perhaps I can make it plainer if I tell the story of how the Keswick Convention began. Canon Battersby was an evangelical clergyman of the Church of England for more than twenty years, a man of deep and tender godliness, but he had not the consciousness of rest and victory over sin, and often was deeply sad at the thought of stumbling and failure and sin. When he heard about the possibility of victory, he felt it was desirable, but it was as if he could not attain it. On one occasion. he heard an address on “Rest and Faith” from the story of the nobleman who came from Capernaum to Cana to ask Christ to heal his child. In the address it was shown that the nobleman believed that Christ could help him in a general way, but he came to Jesus a good deal by way of an experiment. He hoped Christ would help him, but he had not any assurance of that help. But what happened? When Christ said to him: “Go thy way, for thy child liveth,” that man believed the word that Jesus spoke; he rested in that word. He had no proof that his child was well again, and he had to walk back seven hours’ journey to Capernaum. He walked back, and on the way met his servant, and got the first news that the child was well, that at one o’clock on the afternoon of the previous day, at the very time that Jesus spoke to him, the fever left the child. That father rested upon the word of Jesus and His work, and he went down to Capernaum and found his child well; and he praised God, and became with his whole house a believer and disciple of Jesus.
Oh, friends, that is faith! When God comes to me with the promise of His keeping, and I have nothing on earth to trust in, I say to God: “Thy word is enough; kept by the power of God.” That is faith, that is rest.
When Canon Battersby heard that address, he went home that night, and in the darkness of the night found rest. He rested on the word of Jesus. And the next morning, in the streets of Oxford, he said to a friend: “I have found it!” Then he went and told others, and asked that the Keswick Convention might be begun, and those at the convention with himself should testify simply what God had done.
It is a great thing when a man comes to rest on God’s almighty power for every moment of his life, in prospect of temptations to temper and haste and anger and unlovingness and pride and sin. It is a great thing in prospect of these to enter into a covenant with the omnipotent Jehovah, not on account of anything that any man says, or of anything that my heart feels, but on the strength of the Word of God: “Kept by the power of God through faith.”
Oh, let us say to God that we are going to prove Him to the very uttermost. Let us say: We ask Thee for nothing more than Thou canst give, but we want nothing less. Let us say: My God, let my life be a proof of what the omnipotent God can do. Let these be the two dispositions of our souls every day — deep helplessness, and simple, childlike rest.
Faith Needs Fellowship
That brings me to just one more thought in regard to faith — faith implies fellowship with God.
Many people want to take the Word and believe that, and they find they cannot believe it. Ah, no! you cannot separate God from His Word. No goodness or power can be received separate from God, and if you want to get into this life of godliness, you must take time for fellowship with God.
People sometimes tell me: “My life is one of such scurry and bustle that I have no time for fellowship with God.” A dear missionary said to me: “People do not know how we missionaries are tempted. I get up at five o’clock in the morning, and there are the natives waiting for their orders for work. Then I have to go to the school and spend hours there; and then there is other work, and sixteen hours rush along, and I hardly get time to be alone with God.”
Ah! there is the want. I pray you, remember two things. I have not told you to trust the omnipotence of God as a thing, and I have not told you to trust the Word of God as a written book, but I have told you to go to the God of omnipotence and the God of the Word. Deal with God as that nobleman dealt with the living Christ. Why was he able to believe the word that Christ spoke to him? Because in the very eyes and tones and voice of Jesus, the Son of God, he saw and heard something which made him feel that he could trust Him. And that is what Christ can do for you and me. Do not try to stir and arouse faith from within. How often I have tried to do that, and made a fool of myself! You cannot stir up faith from the depths of your heart. Leave your heart, and look into the face of Christ, and listen to what He tells you about how He will keep you. Look up into the face of your loving Father, and take time every day with Him, and begin a new life with the deep emptiness and poverty of a man who has got nothing, and who wants to get everything from Him — with the deep restfulness of a man who rests on the living God, the omnipotent Jehovah — and try God, and prove Him if He will not open the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing that there shall not be room to receive it.
I close by asking if you are willing to experience to the very full the heavenly keeping for the heavenly inheritance? Robert Murray M’Cheyne says, somewhere: “Oh, God, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be made.” And if that prayer is in your heart, come now, and let us enter into a covenant with the everlasting and omnipotent Jehovah afresh, and in great helplessness, but in great restfulness place ourselves in His hands. And then as we enter into our covenant, let us have the one prayer — that we may believe fully that the everlasting God is going to be our Companion, holding our hand every moment of the day; our Keeper, watching over us without a moment’s interval; our Father, delighting to reveal Himself in our souls always. He has the power to let the sunshine of His love be with us all the day. Do not be afraid because you have got your business that you cannot have God with you always. Learn the lesson that the natural sun shines upon you all the day, and you enjoy its light, and wherever you are you have got the sun; God takes care that it shines upon you. And God will take care that His own divine light shines upon you, and that you shall abide in that light, if you will only trust Him for it. Let us trust God to do that with a great and entire trust.
Here is the omnipotence of God, and here is faith reaching out to the measure of that omnipotence. Shall we not say: “All that that omnipotence can do, I am going to trust my God for”? Are not the two sides of this heavenly life wonderful? God’s omnipotence covers me, and my will in its littleness rests in that omnipotence, and rejoices in it!

Moment by moment, I’m kept in His love;
Moment by moment, I’ve life from above;
Looking to Jesus, the glory doth shine;
Moment by moment, Oh, Lord, I am Thine!

O WRETCHED MAN THAT

2005-11-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

“O WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM!”

“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24, 25).

You know the wonderful place that this text has in the wonderful epistle to the Romans. It stands here at the end of the seventh chapter as the gateway into the eighth. In the first sixteen verses of the eighth chapter the name of the Holy Spirit is found sixteen times; you have there the description and promise of the life that a child of God can live in the power of the Holy Ghost. This begins in the second verse: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” From that Paul goes on to speak of the great privileges of the child of God, who is to be led by the Spirit of God. The gateway into all this is in the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter:
“O wretched man that I am!”
There you have the words of a man who has come to the end of himself. He has in the previous verses described how he had struggled and wrestled in his own power to obey the holy law of God, and had failed. But in answer to his own question he now finds the true answer and cries out: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” From that he goes on to speak of what that deliverance is that he has found.
I want from these words to describe the path by which a man can be led out of the spirit of bondage into the spirit of liberty. You know how distinctly it is said: “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear.” We are continually warned that this is the great danger of the Christian life, to go again into bondage; and I want to describe the path by which a man can get out of bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Rather, I want to describe the man himself.
First, these words are the language of a regenerate man; second, of an impotent man; third, of a wretched man; and fourth, of a man on the borders of complete liberty.
The Regenerate Man
There is much evidence of regeneration from the fourteenth verse of the chapter on to the twenty-third. “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me”: that is the language of a regenerate man, a man who knows that his heart and nature have been renewed, and that sin is now a power in him that is not himself. “I delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man”: that again is the language of a regenerate man. He dares to say when he does evil: “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” It is of great importance to understand this.
In the first two great sections of the epistle, Paul deals with justification and sanctification. In dealing with justification, he lays the foundation of the doctrine in the teaching about sin, not in the singular sin, but in the plural, sins — the actual transgressions. In the second part of the fifth chapter he begins to deal with sin, not as actual transgression, but as a power. just imagine what a loss it would have been to us if we had not this second half of the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, if Paul had omitted in his teaching this vital question of the sinfulness of the believer. We should have missed the question we all want answered as to sin in the believer. What is the answer? The regenerate man is one in whom the will has been renewed, and who can say: “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.”
The Impotent Man
Here is the great mistake made by many Christian people: they think that when there is a renewed will, it is enough; but that is not the case. This regenerate man tells us: “I will to do what is good, but the power to perform I find not.” How often people tell us that if you set yourself determinedly, you can perform what you will! But this man was as determined as any man can be, and yet he made the confession: “To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not.”
But, you ask: “How is it God makes a regenerate man utter such a confession, with a right will, with a heart that longs to do good, and longs to do its very utmost to love God?”
Let us look at this question. What has God given us our will for? Had the angels who fell, in their own will, the strength to stand? Verily, no. The will of the creature is nothing but an empty vessel in which the power of God is to be made manifest. The creature must seek in God all that it is to be. You have it in the second chapter of the epistle to the Philippians, and you have it here also, that God’s work is to work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Here is a man who appears to say: “God has not worked to do in me.” But we are taught that God works both to will and to do. How is the apparent contradiction to be reconciled?
You will find that in this passage (Rom. 7:6-25) the name of the Holy Spirit does not occur once, nor does the name of Christ occur. The man is wrestling and struggling to fulfill God’s law. Instead of the Holy Spirit and of Christ, the law is mentioned nearly twenty times. In this chapter, it shows a believer doing his very best to obey the law of God with his regenerate will. Not only this; but you will find the little words, I, me, my, occur more than forty times. It is the regenerate I in its impotence seeking to obey the law without being filled with the Spirit. This is the experience of almost every saint. After conversion a man begins to do his best, and he fails; but if we are brought into the full light, we need fail no longer. Nor need we fail at all if we have received the Spirit in His fullness at conversion.
God allows that failure that the regenerate man should be taught his own utter impotence. It is in the course of this struggle that there comes to us this sense of our utter sinfulness. It is God’s way of dealing with us. He allows that man to strive to fulfill the law that, as he strives and wrestles, he may be brought to this: “I am a regenerate child of God, but I am utterly helpless to obey His law.” See what strong words are used all through the chapter to describe this condition: “I am carnal, sold under sin”; “I see another law in my members bringing me into captivity”; and last of all, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” This believer who bows here in deep contrition is utterly unable to obey the law of God.
The Wretched Man
Not only is the man who makes this confession a regenerate and an impotent man, but he is also a wretched man. He is utterly unhappy and miserable; and what is it that makes him so utterly miserable? It is because God has given him a nature that loves Himself. He is deeply wretched because he feels he is not obeying his God. He says, with brokenness of heart: “It is not I that do it, but I am under the awful power of sin, which is holding me down. It is I, and yet not I: alas! alas! it is myself; so closely am I bound up with it, and so closely is it intertwined with my very nature.” Blessed be God when a man learns to say: “O wretched man that I am!” from the depth of his heart. He is on the way to the eighth chapter of Romans.
There are many who make this confession a pillow for sin. They say that Paul had to confess his weakness and helplessness in this way, what are they that they should try to do better? So the call to holiness is quietly set aside. Would God that every one of us had learned to say these words in the very spirit in which they are written here! When we hear sin spoken of as the abominable thing that God hates, do not many of us wince before the word? Would that all Christians who go on sinning and sinning would take this verse to heart. If ever you utter a sharp word say: “O wretched man that I am!” And every time you lose your temper, kneel down and understand that it never was meant by God that this was to be the state in which His child should remain. Would God that we would take this word into our daily life, and say it every time we are touched about our own honor, and every time we say sharp things, and every time we sin against the Lord God, and against the Lord Jesus Christ in His humility, and in His obedience, and in His self-sacrifice! Would to God you could forget everything else, and cry out: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
Why should you say this whenever you commit sin? Because it is when a man is brought to this confession that deliverance is at hand.
And remember it was not only the sense of being impotent and taken captive that made him wretched, but it was above all the sense of sinning against his God. The law was doing its work, making sin exceeding sinful in his sight. The thought of continually grieving God became utterly unbearable — it was this brought forth the piercing cry: “O wretched man!” As long as we talk and reason about our impotence and our failure, and only try to find out what Romans 7 means, it will profit us but little; but when once every sin gives new intensity to the sense of wretchedness, and we feel our whole state as one of not only helplessness, but actual exceeding sinfulness, we shall be pressed not only to ask: “Who shall deliver us?” but to cry: “I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord.”
The Almost-Delivered Man
The man has tried to obey the beautiful law of God. He has loved it, he has wept over his sin, he has tried to conquer, he has tried to overcome fault after fault, but every time he has ended in failure.
What did he mean by “the body of this death”? Did he mean, my body when I die? Verily no. In the eighth chapter you have the answer to this question in the words: “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” That is the body of death from which he is seeking deliverance.
And now he is on the brink of deliverance! In the twenty-third verse of the seventh chapter we have the words: “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” It is a captive that cries: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” He is a man who feels himself bound. But look to the contrast in the second verse of the eighth chapter: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” That is the deliverance through Jesus Christ our Lord; the liberty to the captive which the Spirit brings. Can you keep captive any longer a man made free by the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”?
But you say, the regenerate man, had not he the Spirit of Jesus when he spoke in the sixth chapter? Yes, but he did not know what the Holy Spirit could do for him.
God does not work by His Spirit as He works by a blind force in nature. He leads His people on as reasonable, intelligent beings, and therefore when He wants to give us that Holy Spirit whom He has promised, He brings us first to the end of self, to the conviction that though we have been striving to obey the law, we have failed. When we have come to the end of that, then He shows us that in the Holy Spirit we have the power of obedience, the power of victory, and the power of real holiness.
God works to will, and He is ready to work to do, but, alas! many Christians misunderstand this. They think because they have the will, it is enough, and that now they are able to do. This is not so. The new will is a permanent gift, an attribute of the new nature. The power to do is not a permanent gift, but must be each moment received from the Holy Spirit. It is the man who is conscious of his own impotence as a believer who will learn that by the Holy Spirit he can live a holy life. This man is on the brink of that great deliverance; the way has been prepared for the glorious eighth chapter. I now ask this solemn question: Where are you living? Is it with you, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” with now and then a little experience of the power of the Holy Spirit? or is it, “I thank God through Jesus Christ! The law of the Spirit hath set me free from the law of sin and of death”?
What the Holy Spirit does is to give the victory. “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live.” It is the Holy Ghost who does this — the third Person of the Godhead. He it is who, when the heart is opened wide to receive Him, comes in and reigns there, and mortifies the deeds of the body, day by day, hour by hour, and moment by moment.
I want to bring this to a point. Remember, dear friend, what we need is to come to decision and action. There are in Scripture two very different sorts of Christians. The Bible speaks in Romans, Corinthians and Galatians about yielding to the flesh; and that is the life of tens of thousands of believers. All their lack of joy in the Holy Ghost, and their lack of the liberty He gives, is just owing to the flesh. The Spirit is within them, but the flesh rules the life. To be led by the Spirit of God is what they need. Would God that I could make every child of His realize what it means that the everlasting God has given His dear Son, Christ Jesus, to watch over you every day, and that what you have to do is to trust; and that the work of the Holy Spirit is to enable you. every moment to remember Jesus, and to trust Him! The Spirit has come to keep the link with Him unbroken every moment. Praise God for the Holy Ghost! We are so accustomed to think of the Holy Spirit as a luxury, for special times, or for special ministers and men. But the Holy Spirit is necessary for every believer, every moment of the day. Praise God you have Him, and that He gives you the full experience of the deliverance in Christ, as He makes you free from the power of sin.
Who longs to have the power and the liberty of the Holy Spirit? Oh, brother, bow before God in one final cry of despair:
“O God, must I go on sinning this way forever? Who shall deliver me, O wretched man that I am! from the body of this death?”
Are you ready to sink before God in that cry and seek the power of Jesus to dwell and work in you? Are you ready to say: “I thank God through Jesus Christ”?
What good does it do that we go to church or attend conventions, that we study our Bibles and pray, unless our lives are filled with the Holy Spirit? That is what God wants; and nothing else will enable us to live a life of power and peace. You know that when a minister or parent is using the catechism, when a question is asked an answer is expected. Alas! how many Christians are content with the question put here: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” but never give the answer. Instead of answering, they are silent. Instead of saying: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” they are forever repeating the question without the answer. If you want the path to the full deliverance of Christ, and the liberty of the Spirit, the glorious liberty of the children of God, take it through the seventh chapter of Romans; and then say: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Be not content to remain ever groaning, but say: “I, a wretched man, thank God, through Jesus Christ. Even though I do not see it all, I am going to praise God.”
There is deliverance, there is the liberty of the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God is “joy in the Holy Ghost.”
“HAVING BEGUN IN THE SPIRIT”
The words from which I wish to address you, you will find in the epistle to the Galatians, the third chapter, the third verse; let us read the second verse also: “This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish?” And then comes my text — “Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”
When we speak of the quickening or the deepening or the strengthening of the spiritual life, we are thinking of something that is feeble and wrong and sinful; and it is a great thing to take our place before God with the confession:
“Oh, God, our spiritual life is not what it should be!”
May God work that in your heart, reader.
As we look round about on the church we see so many indications of feebleness and of failure, and of sin, and of shortcoming, that we are compelled to ask: Why is it? Is there any necessity for the church of Christ to be living in such a low state? Or is it actually possible that God’s people should be living always in the joy and strength of their God?
Every believing heart must answer: It is possible.
Then comes the great question: Why is it, how is it to be accounted for, that God’s church as a whole is so feeble, and that the great majority of Christians are not living up to their privileges? There must be a reason for it. Has God not given Christ His Almighty Son to be the Keeper of every believer, to make Christ an ever-present reality, and to impart and communicate to us all that we have in Christ? God has given His Son, and God has given His Spirit. How is it that believers do not live up to their privileges?
We find in more than one of the epistles a very solemn answer to that question. There are epistles, such as the first to the Thessalonians, where Paul writes to the Christians, in effect: “I want you to grow, to abound, to increase more and more.” They were young, and there were things lacking in their faith, but their state was so far satisfactory, and gave him great joy, and he writes time after time: “I pray God that you may abound more and more; I write to you to increase more and more.” But there are other epistles where he takes a very different tone, especially the epistles to the Corinthians and to the Galatians, and he tells them in many different ways what the one reason was, that they were not living as Christians ought to live; many were under the power of the flesh. My text is one example. He reminds them that by the preaching of faith they had received the Holy Spirit. He had preached Christ to them; they had accepted that Christ, and had received the Holy Spirit in power. But what happened? Having begun in the Spirit, they tried to perfect the work that the Spirit had begun in the flesh by their own effort. We find the same teaching in the epistle to the Corinthians.
Now, we have here a solemn discovery of what the great want is in the church, of Christ. God has called the church of Christ to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the church is living for the most part in the power of human flesh, and of will and energy and effort apart from the Spirit of God. I doubt not that that is the case with many individual believers; and oh, if God will use me to give you a message from Him, my one message will be this: “If the church will return to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is her strength and her help, and if the church will return to give up everything, and wait upon God to be filled with the Spirit, her days of beauty and gladness will return, and we shall see the glory of God revealed among us.” This is my message to every individual believer: “Nothing will help you unless you come to understand that you must live every day under the power of the Holy Ghost.”
God wants you to be a living vessel in whom the power of the Spirit is to be manifested every hour and every moment of your life, and God will enable you to be that.
Now let us try to learn that this word to the Galatians teaches us — some very simple thoughts. It shows us how (1) the beginning of the Christian life is receiving the Holy Spirit. It shows us (2) what great danger there is of forgetting that we are to live by the Spirit, and not live after the flesh. It shows us (3) what are the fruits and the proofs of our seeking perfection in the flesh. And then it suggests to us (4) the way of deliverance from this state.
Receiving the Holy Spirit
First of all, Paul says: “Having begun in the Spirit.” Remember, the apostle not only preached justification by faith, but he preached something more. He preached this — the epistle is full of it — that justified men cannot live but by the Holy Spirit, and that therefore God gives to every justified man the Holy Spirit to seal him. The apostle says to them in effect more than once:
“How did you receive the Holy Spirit? Was it by the preaching of the law, or by the preaching of faith?”
He could point back to that time when there had been a mighty revival under his teaching. The power of God had been manifested, and the Galatians were compelled to confess:
“Yes, we have got the Holy Ghost: accepting Christ by faith, by faith we received the Holy Spirit.”
Now, it is to be feared that there are many Christians who hardly know that when they believed, they received the Holy Ghost. A great many Christians can say: “I received pardon and I received peace.” But if you were to ask them: “Have you received the Holy Ghost?” they would hesitate, and many, if they were to say Yes, would say it with hesitation; and they would tell you that they hardly knew what it was, since that time, to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us try and take hold of this great truth: The beginning of the true Christian life is to receive the Holy Ghost. And the work of every Christian minister is that which was the work of Paul — to remind his people that they received the Holy Ghost, and must live according to His guidance and in His power.
If those Galatians who received the Holy Spirit in power were tempted to go astray by that terrible danger of perfecting in the flesh what had been begun in the Spirit, how much more danger do those Christians run who hardly ever know that they have received the Holy Spirit, or who, if they know it as a matter of belief, hardly ever think of it and hardly ever praise God for it!
Neglecting the Holy Spirit
But now look, in the second place, at the great danger.
You all know what shunting is on a railway. A locomotive with its train may be run in a certain direction, and the points at some place may not be properly opened or closed, and unobservingly it is shunted off to the right or to the left. And if that takes place, for instance, on a dark night, the train goes in the wrong direction, and the people might never know it until they have gone some distance.
And just so God gives Christians the Holy Spirit with this intention, that every day all their life should be lived in the power of the Spirit. A man cannot live one hour a godly life unless by the power of the Holy Ghost. He may live a proper, consistent life, as people call it, an irreproachable life, a life of virtue and diligent service; but to live a life acceptable to God, in the enjoyment of God’s salvation and God’s love, to live and walk in the power of the new life — he cannot do it unless he be guided by the Holy Spirit every day and every hour.
But now listen to the danger. The Galatians received the Holy Ghost, but what was begun by the Spirit they tried to perfect in the flesh. How? They fell back again under Judaizing teachers who told them they must be circumcised. They began to seek their religion in external observances. And so Paul uses that expression about those teachers who had them circumcised, that “they sought to glory in their flesh.”
You sometimes hear the expression used, religious flesh. What is meant by that? It is simply an expression made to give utterance to this thought: My human nature and my human will and my human effort can be very active in religion, and after being converted, and after receiving the Holy Ghost, I may begin in my own strength to try to serve God.
I may be very diligent and doing a great deal, and yet all the time it is more the work of human flesh than of God’s Spirit. What a solemn thought, that man can, without noticing it, be shunted off from the line of the Holy Ghost on to the line of the flesh; that he can be most diligent and make great sacrifices, and yet it is all in the power of the human will! Ah, the great question for us to ask of God in self-examination is that we may be shown whether our religious life is lived more in the power of the flesh than in the power of the Holy Spirit. A man may be a preacher, he may work most diligently in his ministry, a man may be a Christian worker, and others may tell of him that he makes great sacrifices, and yet you can feel there is a want about it. You feel that he is not a spiritual man; there is no spirituality about his life. How many Christians there are about whom no one would ever think of saying: “What a spiritual man he is!” Ah! there is the weakness of the Church of Christ. It is all in that one word — flesh.
Now, the flesh may manifest itself in many ways. It may be manifested in fleshly wisdom. My mind may be most active about religion. I may preach or write or think or meditate, and delight in being occupied with things in God’s Book and in God’s Kingdom; and yet the power of the Holy Ghost may be markedly absent. I fear that if you take the preaching throughout the Church of Christ and ask why there is, alas! so little converting power in the preaching of the Word, why there is so much work and often so little result for eternity, why the Word has so little power to build up believers in holiness and in consecration-the answer will come: It is the absence of the power of the Holy Ghost. And why is this? There can be no other reason but that the flesh and human energy have taken the place that the Holy Ghost ought to have. That was true of the Galatians, it was true of the Corinthians. You know Paul said to them: “I cannot speak to you as to spiritual men; you ought to be spiritual men, but you are carnal.” And you know how often in the course of his epistles he had to reprove and condemn them for strife and for divisions.
Lacking the Fruit of the Holy Spirit
A third thought: What are the proofs or indications that a church like the Galatians, or a Christian, is serving God in the power of the flesh — is perfecting in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit?
The answer is very easy. Religious self-effort always ends in sinful flesh. What was the state of those Galatians? Striving to be justified by the works of the law. And yet they were quarreling and in danger of devouring one another. Count up the expressions that the apostle uses to indicate their want of love, and you will find more than twelve — envy, jealousy, bitterness, strife, and all sorts of expressions. Read in the fourth and fifth chapters what he says about that. You see how they tried to serve God in their own strength, and they failed utterly. All this religious effort resulted in failure. The power of sin and the sinful flesh got the better of them, and their whole condition was one of the saddest that could be thought of.
This comes to us with unspeakable solemnity. There is a complaint everywhere in the Christian Church of the want of a high standard of integrity and godliness, even among the professing members of Christian churches. I remember a sermon which I heard preached on commercial morality. And, oh, if we speak not only of the commercial morality or immorality, but if we go into the homes of Christians, and if we think of the life to which God has called His children, and which He enables them to live by the Holy Ghost, and if we think of how much, nevertheless, there is of unlovingness and temper and sharpness and bitterness, and if we think how much there is very often of strife among the members of churches, and how much there is of envy and jealousy and sensitiveness and pride, then we are compelled to say: “Where are marks of the presence of the Spirit of the Lamb of God?” Wanting, sadly wanting!
Many people speak of these things as though they were the natural result of our feebleness and cannot well be helped. Many people speak of these things as sins, yet have given up the hope of conquering them’. Many people speak of these things in the church around them, and do not see the least prospect of ever having the things changed. There is no prospect until there comes a radical change, until the Church of God begins to see that every sin in the believer comes from the flesh, from a fleshly life midst our religious activities, from a striving in self-effort to serve God. Until we learn to make confession, and until we begin to see, we must somehow or other get God’s Spirit in power back to His Church, we must fail. Where did the Church begin in Pentecost? There they began in the Spirit. But, alas, how the Church of the next century went off into the flesh! They thought to perfect the Church in the flesh.
Do not let us think, because the blessed Reformation restored the great doctrine of justification by faith, that the power of the Holy Spirit was then fully restored. If it is our faith that God is going to have mercy on His Church in these last ages, it will be because the doctrine and the truth about the Holy Spirit will not only be studied, but sought after with a whole heart; and not only because that truth will be sought after, but because ministers and congregations will be found bowing before God in deep abasement with one cry: “We have grieved God’s Spirit; we have tried to be Christian churches with as little as possible of God’s Spirit; we have not sought to be churches filled with the Holy Ghost.”
All the feebleness in the Church is owing to the refusal of the Church to obey its God.
And why is that so? I know your answer. You say: “We are too feeble and too helpless, and we try to obey, and we vow to obey, but somehow we fail.”
Ah, yes; you fail because you do not accept the strength of God. God alone can work out His will in you. You cannot work out God’s will, but His Holy Spirit can; and until the Church, until believers grasp this, and cease trying by human effort to do God’s will, and wait upon the Holy Spirit to come with all His omnipotent and enabling power, the Church will never be what God wants her to be, and what God is willing to make of her.
Yielding to the Holy Spirit
I come now to my last thought, the question: What is the way to restoration?
Beloved friend, the answer is simple and easy. If that train has been shunted off, there is nothing for it but to come back to the point at which it was led away. The Galatians had no other way in returning but to come back to where they had gone wrong, to come back from all religious effort in their own strength, and from seeking anything by their own work, and to yield themselves humbly to the Holy Spirit. There is no other way for us as individuals.
Is there any brother or sister whose heart is conscious: “Alas! my life knows but little of the power of the Holy Ghost”? I come to you with God’s message that you can have no conception of what your life would be in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is too high and too blessed and too wonderful, but I bring you the message that just as truly as the everlasting Son of God came to this world and wrought His wonderful works, that just as truly as on Calvary He died and wrought out your redemption by His precious blood, so, just as truly, can the Holy Spirit come into your heart that with His divine power He may sanctify you and enable you to do God’s blessed will, and fill your heart with joy and with strength. But, alas! we have forgotten, we have grieved, we have dishonored the Holy Spirit, and He has not been able to do His work. But I bring you the message: The Father in Heaven loves to fill His children with His Holy Spirit. God longs to give each one individually, separately, the power of the Holy Spirit for daily life. The command comes to us individually, unitedly. God wants us as His children to arise and place our sins before Him, and to call upon Him for mercy. Oh, are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye perfecting in the flesh that which was begun in the Spirit? Let us bow in shame, and confess before God how our fleshly religion, our self-effort, and self-confidence, have been the cause of every failure.
I have often been asked by young Christians: “Why is it that I fail so? I did so solemnly vow with my whole heart, and did desire to serve God; why have I failed?”
To such I always give the one answer: “My dear friend, you are trying to do in your own strength what Christ alone can do in you.”
And when they tell me: “I am sure I knew Christ alone could do it, I was not trusting in myself,” my answer always is:
“You were trusting in yourself or you could not have failed. If you had trusted Christ, He could not fail.”
Oh, this perfecting in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit runs far deeper through us than we know. Let us ask God to discover to us that it is only when we are brought to utter shame and emptiness that we shall be prepared to receive the blessing that comes from on high.
And so I come with these two questions. Are you living, beloved brother-minister — I ask it of every minister of the Gospel — are you living under the power of the Holy Ghost? Are you living as an anointed, Spirit-filled man in your ministry and your life before God? O brethren, our place is an awful one. We have to show people what God will do for us, not in our words and teaching, but in our life. God help us to do it!
I ask it of every member of Christ’s Church and of every believer: Are you living a life under the power of the Holy Spirit day by day, or are you attempting to live without that? Remember you cannot. Are you consecrated, given up to the Spirit to work in you and to live in you? Oh, come and confess every failure of temper, every failure of tongue however small, every failure owing to the absence of the Holy Spirit and the presence of the power of self. Are you consecrated, are you given up to the Holy Spirit?
If your answer be No, then I come with a second question — Are you willing to be consecrated? Are you willing to give up yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit?
You well know that the human side of consecration will not help you. I may consecrate myself a hundred times with all the intensity of my being, and that will not help me. What will help me is this — that God from Heaven accepts and seals the consecration.
And now are you willing to give yourselves up to the Holy Spirit? You can do it now. A great deal may still be dark and dim, and beyond what we understand, and you may feel nothing; but come. God alone can effect the change. God alone, who gave us the Holy Spirit, can restore the Holy Spirit in power into our life. God alone can “strengthen us with might by his Spirit in the inner man.” And to every waiting heart that will make the sacrifice, and give up everything, and give time to cry and pray to God, the answer will come. The blessing is not far off. Our God delights to help us. He will enable us to perfect, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, what was begun in the Spirit.

IMPOSSIBLE WITH MAN

2005-11-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

IMPOSSIBLE WITH MAN, POSSIBLE WITH GOD
“And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

Christ had said to the rich young ruler, “Sell all that thou hast ... and come, follow me.” The young man went away sorrowful. Christ then turned to the disciples, and said: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” The disciples, we read, were greatly astonished, and answered: “If it is so difficult to enter the kingdom, who, then, can be saved?” And Christ gave this blessed answer:
“The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
The text contains two thoughts — that in religion, in the question of salvation and of following Christ by a holy life, it is impossible for man to do it. And then alongside that is the thought — What is impossible with man is possible with God.
The two thoughts mark the two great lessons that man has to learn in the religious life. It often takes a long time to learn the first lesson, that in religion man can do nothing, that salvation is impossible to man. And often a man learns that, and yet he does not learn the second lesson — what has been impossible to him is possible with God. Blessed is the man who learns both lessons! The learning of them marks stages in the Christian’s life.
Man Cannot
The one stage is when a man is trying to do his utmost and fails, when a man tries to do better and fails again, when a man tries much more and always fails. And yet very often he does not even then learn the lesson: With man it is impossible to serve God and Christ. Peter spent three years in Christ’s school, and he never learned that, It is impossible, until he had denied his Lord and went out and wept bitterly. Then he learned it.
Just look for a moment at a man who is learning this lesson. At first he fights against it; then he submits to it, but reluctantly and in despair; at last he accepts it willingly and rejoices in it. At the beginning of the Christian life the young convert has no conception of this truth. He has been converted, he has the joy of the Lord in his heart, he begins to run the race and fight the battle; he is sure he can conquer, for he is earnest and honest, and God will help him. Yet, somehow, very soon he fails where he did not expect it, and sin gets the better of him. He is disappointed; but he thinks: “I was not watchful enough, I did not make my resolutions strong enough.” And again he vows, and again he prays, and yet he fails. He thought: “Am I not a regenerate man? Have I not the life of God within me?” And he thinks again: “Yes, and I have Christ to help me, I can live the holy life.”
At a later period he comes to another state of mind. He begins to see such a life is impossible, but he does not accept it. There are multitudes of Christians who come to this point: “I cannot”; and then think God never expected them to do what they cannot do. If you tell them that God does expect it, it appears to them a mystery. A good many Christians are living a low life, a life of failure and of sin, instead of rest and victory, because they began to see: “I cannot, it is impossible.” And yet they do not understand it fully, and so, under the impression, I cannot, they give way to despair. They will do their best, but they never expect to get on very far.
But God leads His children on to a third stage, when a man comes to take that, It is impossible, in its full truth, and yet at the same time says: “I must do it, and I will do it — it is impossible for man, and yet I must do it”; when the renewed will begins to exercise its whole power, and in intense longing and prayer begins to cry to God: “Lord, what is the meaning of this? — how am I to be freed from the power of sin?”
It is the state of the regenerate man in Romans 7. There you will find the Christian man trying his very utmost to live a holy life. God’s law has been revealed to him as reaching down into the very depth of the desires of the heart, and the man can dare to say:
“I delight in the law of God after the inward man. To will what is good is present with me. My heart loves the law of God, and my will has chosen that law.”
Can a man like that fail, with his heart full of delight in God’s law and with his will determined to do what is right? Yes. That is what Romans 7 teaches us. There is something more needed. Not only must I delight in the law of God after the inward man, and will what God wills, but I need a divine omnipotence to work it in me. And that is what the apostle Paul teaches in Philippians 2:13:
“It is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do.”
Note the contrast. In Romans 7, the regenerate man says: “To will is present with me, but to do — I find I cannot do. I will, but I cannot perform.” But in Philippians 2, you have a man who has been led on farther, a man who understands that when God has worked the renewed will, God will give the power to accomplish what that will desires. Let us receive this as the first great lesson in the spiritual life: “It is impossible for me, my God; let there be an end of the flesh and all its powers, an end of self, and lot it be my glory to be helpless.”
Praise God for the divine teaching that makes us helpless!
When you thought of absolute surrender to God were you not brought to an end of yourself, and to feel that you could see how you actually could live as a man absolutely surrendered to God every moment of the day — at your table, in your house, in your business, in the midst of trials and temptations? I pray you learn the lesson now. If you felt you could not do it, you are on the right road, if you let yourselves be led. Accept that position, and maintain it before God: “My heart’s desire and delight, O God, is absolute surrender, but I cannot perform it. It is impossible for me to live that life. It is beyond me.” Fall down and learn that when you are utterly helpless, God will come to work in you not only to will, but also to do.
God Can
Now comes the second lesson. “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
I said a little while ago that there is many a man who has learned the lesson, It is impossible with men, and then he gives up in helpless despair, and lives a wretched Christian life, without joy, or strength, or victory. And why? Because he does not humble himself to learn that other lesson: With God all things are possible.
Your religious life is every day to be a proof that God works impossibilities; your religious life is to be a series of impossibilities made possible and actual by God’s almighty power. That is what the Christian needs. He has an almighty God that he worships, and he must learn to understand that he does not need a little of God’s power, but he needs — with reverence be it said — the whole of God’s omnipotence to keep him right, and to live like a Christian.
The whole of Christianity is a work of God’s omnipotence. Look at the birth of Christ Jesus. That was a miracle of divine power, and it was said to Mary: “With God nothing shall be impossible.” It was the omnipotence of God. Look at Christ’s resurrection. We are taught that it was according to the exceeding greatness of His mighty power that God raised Christ from the dead.
Every tree must grow on the root from which it springs. An oak tree three hundred years old grows all the time on the one root from which it had its beginning. Christianity had its beginning in the omnipotence of God, and in every soul it must have its continuance in that omnipotence. All the possibilities of the higher Christian life have their origin in a new apprehension of Christ’s power to work all God’s will in us.
I want to call upon you now to come and worship an almighty God. Have you learned to do it? Have you learned to deal so closely with an almighty God that you know omnipotence is working in you? In outward appearance there is often so little sign of it. The apostle Paul said: “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and . . . my preaching was ... in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” From the human side there was feebleness, from the divine side there was divine omnipotence. And that is true of every godly life; and if we would only learn that lesson better, and give a wholehearted, undivided surrender to it, we should learn what blessedness there is in dwelling every hour and every moment with an almighty God. Have you ever studied in the Bible the attribute of God’s omnipotence? You know that it was God’s omnipotence that created the world, and created fight out of darkness, and created man. But have you studied God’s omnipotence in the works of redemption?
Look at Abraham. When God called him to be the father of that people out of which Christ was to be born, God said to him: “I am God Almighty, walk before me and be thou perfect.” And God trained Abraham to trust Him as the omnipotent One; and whether it was his going out to a land that he knew not, or his faith as a pilgrim midst the thousands of Canaanites — his faith said: This is my land — or whether it was his faith in waiting twenty-five years for a son in his old age, against all hope, or whether it was the raising up of Isaac from the dead on Mount Moriah when he was going to sacrifice him — Abraham believed God. He was strong in faith, giving glory to God, because he accounted Him who had promised able to perform.
The cause of the weakness of your Christian life is that you want to work it out partly, and to let God help you. And that cannot be. You must come to be utterly helpless, to let God work, and God will work gloriously. It is this that we need if we are indeed to be workers for God. I could go through Scripture and prove to you how Moses, when he led Israel out of Egypt; how Joshua, when he brought them into the land of Canaan; how all God’s servants in the Old Testament counted upon the omnipotence of God doing impossibilities. And this God lives today, and this God is the God of every child of His. And yet we are some of us wanting God to give us a little help while we do our best, instead of coming to understand what God wants, and to say: “I can do nothing. God must and will do all.” Have you said: “In worship, in work, in sanctification, in obedience to God, I can do nothing of myself, and so my place is to worship the omnipotent God, and to believe that He will work in me every moment”? Oh, may God teach us this! Oh, that God would by His grace show you what a God you have, and to what a God you have entrusted yourself — an omnipotent God, willing with His whole omnipotence to place Himself at the disposal of every child of His! Shall we not take the lesson of the Lord Jesus and say: “Amen; the things which are impossible with men are possible with God”?
Remember what we have said about Peter, his self-confidence, self-power, self-will, and how he came to deny his Lord. You feel, “Ah! there is the self-life, there is the flesh-life that rules in me!” And now, have you believed that there is deliverance from that? Have you believed that Almighty God is able so to reveal Christ in your heart, so to let the Holy Spirit rule in you, that. the self-life shall not have power or dominion over you? Have you coupled the two together, and with tears of penitence and with deep humiliation and feebleness, cried out: “O God, it is impossible to me; man cannot do it, but, glory to Thy name, it is possible with God”? Have you claimed deliverance? Do it now. Put yourself afresh in absolute surrender into the hands of a God of infinite love; and as infinite as His love is His power to do it.
God Works in Man
But again, we came to the question of absolute surrender, and felt that that is the want in the Church of Christ, and that is why the Holy Ghost cannot fill us, and why we cannot live as people entirely separated unto the Holy Ghost; that is why the flesh and the self-life cannot be conquered. We have never understood what it is to be absolutely surrendered to God as Jesus was. I know that many a one earnestly and honestly says: “Amen, I accept the message of absolute surrender to God”; and yet thinks: “Will that ever be mine? Can I count upon God to make me one of whom it shall be said in Heaven and on earth and in Hell, he lives in absolute surrender to God?” Brother, sister, “the things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Do believe that when He takes charge of you in Christ, it is possible for God to make you a man of absolute surrender. And God is able to maintain that. He is able to let you rise from bed every morning of the week with that blessed thought directly or indirectly: “I am in God’s charge. My God is working out my life for me.”
Some are weary of thinking about sanctification. You pray, you have longed and cried for it, and yet it appeared so far off! The holiness and humility of Jesus — you are so conscious of how distant it is. Beloved friends, the one doctrine of sanctification that is scriptural and real and effectual is: “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” God can sanctify men, and by His almighty and sanctifying power every moment God can keep them. Oh, that we might get a step nearer to our God now! Oh, that the light of God might shine, and that we might know our God better!
I could go on to speak about the life of Christ in us — living like Christ, taking Christ as our Saviour from sin, and as our life and strength. It is God in Heaven who can reveal that in you. What does that prayer of the apostle Paul say: “That he would grant you according to riches of his glory” — it is sure to be something very wonderful if it is according to the riches of His glory — “to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man”? Do you not see that it is an omnipotent God working by His omnipotence in the heart of His believing children, so that Christ can become an indwelling Saviour? You have tried to grasp it and to seize it, and you have tried to believe it, and it would not come. It was because you had not been brought to believe that “the things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
And so, I trust that the word spoken about love may have brought many to see that we must have an inflowing of love in quite a new way; our heart must be filled with life from above, from the Fountain of everlasting love, if it is going to overflow all the day; then it will be just as natural for us to love our fellowmen as it is natural for the lamb to be gentle and the wolf to be cruel. Until I am brought to such a state that the more a man hates and speaks evil of me, the more unlikable and unlovable a man is, I shall love him all the more; until I am brought to such a state that the more the obstacles and hatred and ingratitude, the more can the power of love triumph in me — until I am brought to see that, I am not saying: “It is impossible with men.” But if you have been led to say: “This message has spoken to me about a love utterly beyond my power; it is absolutely impossible” — then we can come to God and say: “It is possible with Thee.”
Some are crying to God for a great revival. I can say that that is the prayer of my heart unceasingly. Oh, if God would only revive His believing people! I cannot think in the first place of the unconverted formalists of the Church, or of the infidels and skeptics, or of all the wretched and perishing around me, my heart prays in the first place: “My God, revive Thy Church and people.” It is not for nothing that there are in thousands of hearts yearnings after holiness and consecration: it is a forerunner of God’s power. God works to will and then He works to do. These yearnings are a witness and a proof that God has worked to will. Oh, let us in faith believe that the omnipotent God will work to do among His people more than we can ask. “Unto him,” Paul said, “who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.... unto him be glory.” Let our hearts say that. Glory to God, the omnipotent One, who can do above what we dare to ask or think!
“The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” All around you there is a world of sin and sorrow, and the Devil is there. But remember, Christ is on the throne, Christ is stronger, Christ has conquered, and Christ will conquer. But wait on God. My text casts us down: “The things which are impossible with men”; but it ultimately lifts us up high — “are possible with God.” Get linked to God. Adore and trust Him as the omnipotent One, not only for your own life, but for all the souls that are entrusted to you. Never pray without adoring His omnipotence, saying: “Mighty God, I claim Thine almightiness.” And the answer to the prayer will come, and like Abraham you will become strong in faith, giving glory to God, because you account Him who hath promised able to perform.

PETERS REPENTANCE

2005-11-09T20:52:00.000-08:00

PETER'S REPENTANCE

“And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly” (LUKE 22:61, 62).

That was the turning-point in the history of Peter. Christ had said to him: “Thou canst not follow me now.” Peter was not in a fit state to follow Christ, because he had not been brought to an end of himself; he did not know himself, and he therefore could not follow Christ. But when he went out and wept bitterly, then came the great change. Christ previously said to him: “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Here is the point where Peter was converted from self to Christ.
I thank God for the story of Peter. I do not know a man in the Bible who gives us greater comfort. When we look at his character, so full of failures, and at what Christ made him by the power of the Holy Ghost, there is hope for every one of us. But remember, before Christ could fill Peter with the Holy Spirit and make a new man of him, he had to go out and weep bitterly; he had to be humbled. If we want to understand this, I think there are four points that we must look at. First, let us look at Peter the devoted disciple of Jesus; next, at Peter as he lived the life of self; then at Peter in his repentance; and last, at what Christ made of Peter by the Holy Spirit.
Peter the Devoted Disciple of Christ
Christ called Peter to forsake his nets, and follow Him. Peter did it at once, and he afterward could say rightly to the Lord:
“We have forsaken all and followed thee.”
Peter was a man of absolute surrender; he gave up all to follow Jesus. Peter was also a man of ready obedience. You remember Christ said to him, “Launch out into the deep, and let down the net.” Peter the fisherman knew there were no fish there, for they had been toiling all night and had caught nothing; but he said: “At thy word I will let down the net.” He submitted to the word of Jesus. Further, he was a man of great faith. When he saw Christ walking on the sea, he said: “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee”; and at the voice of Christ he stepped out of the boat and walked upon the water.
And Peter was a man of spiritual insight. When Christ asked the disciples: “Whom do ye say that I am?” Peter was able to answer: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Christ said: ‘.Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” And Christ spoke of him as the rock man, and of his having the keys of the kingdom. Peter was a splendid man, a devoted disciple of Jesus, and if he were living nowadays, everyone would say that he was an advanced Christian. And yet how much there was wanting in Peter!
Peter Living the Life of Self
You recollect that just after Christ had said to him: “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven,” Christ began to speak about His sufferings, and Peter dared to say: “Be it far from thee, Lord; this shall not be unto thee.” Then Christ had to say:
“Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”
There was Peter in his self-will, trusting his own wisdom, and actually forbidding Christ to go and die. Whence did that come? Peter trusted in himself and his own thoughts about divine things. We see later on, more than once, that among the disciples there was a questioning who should be the greatest, and Peter was one of them, and he thought he had a right to the very first place. He sought his own honor even above the others. It was the life of self strong in Peter. He had left his boats and his nets, but not his old self.
When Christ had spoken to him about His sufferings, and said: “Get thee behind me, Satan,” He followed it up by saying: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” No man can follow Him unless he do that. Self must be utterly denied. What does that mean? When Peter denied Christ, we read that he said three times: “I do not know the man” ; in other words: “I have nothing to do with Him; He and I are no friends; I deny having any connection with Him.” Christ told Peter that he must deny self. Self must be ignored, and its every claim rejected. That is the root of true discipleship; but Peter did not understand it, and could not obey it. And what happened? When the last night came, Christ said to him:
“Before the cock crow twice thou shalt deny me thrice.”
But with what self-confidence Peter said: “Though all should forsake thee, yet will not I. I am ready to go with thee, to prison and to death.”
Peter meant it honestly, and Peter really intended to do it; but Peter did not know himself. He did not believe he was as bad as Jesus said he was.
We perhaps think of individual sins that come between us and God, but what are we to do with that self-life which is all unclean, our very nature? What are we to do with that flesh that is entirely under the power of sin? Deliverance from that is what we need. Peter knew it not, and therefore it was that in his self-confidence he went forth and denied his Lord.
Notice how Christ uses. that word deny twice. He said to Peter the first time, “Deny self”; He said to Peter the second time, “Thou wilt deny me.” It is either of the two. There is no choice for us; we must either deny self or deny Christ. There are two great powers fighting each other — the self-nature in the power of sin, and Christ in the power of God. Either of these must rule within us.
It was self that made the Devil. He was an angel of God, but he wanted to exalt self. He became a Devil in Hall. Self was the cause of the fall of man. Eve wanted something for herself, and so our first parents fell into all the wretchedness of sin. We their children have inherited an awful nature of sin.
Peter’s Repentance
Peter denied his Lord thrice, and then the Lord looked upon him; and that look of Jesus broke the heart of Peter, and all at once there opened up before him the terrible sin that he had committed, the terrible failure that had come, and the depth into which he had fallen, and “Peter went out and wept bitterly.”
Oh! who can tell what that repentance must have been? During the following hours of that night, and the next day, when he saw Christ crucified and buried, and the next day, the Sabbath — oh, in what hopeless despair and shame he must have spent that day!
“My Lord is gone, my hope is gone, and I denied my Lord. After that life of love, after that blessed fellowship of three years, I denied my Lord. God have mercy upon me!”
I do not think we can realize into what a depth of humiliation Peter sank then. But that was the turningpoint and the change; and on the first day of the week Christ was seen of Peter, and in the evening He met him with the others. Later on at the Lake of Galilee He asked him: “Lovest thou me?” until Peter was made sad by the thought that the Lord reminded him of having denied Him thrice; and said in sorrow, but in uprightness:
“Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.”
Peter Transformed
Now Peter was prepared for deliverance from self, and that is my last thought. You know Christ took him with others to the footstool of the throne, and bade them wait there; and then on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, and Peter was a changed man. I do not want you to think only of the change in Peter, in that boldness, and that power, and that insight into the Scriptures, and that blessing with which he preached that day. Thank God for that. But there was something for Peter deeper and better. Peter’s whole nature was changed. The work that Christ began in Peter when He looked upon him, was perfected when he was filled with the Holy Ghost.
If you want to see that, read the First Epistle of Peter. You know wherein Peter’s failings lay. When he said to Christ, in effect: “Thou never canst suffer; it cannot be” — it showed he had not a conception of what it was to pass through death into life. Christ said: “Deny thyself,” and in spite of that he denied his Lord. When Christ warned him: “Thou shalt deny me,” and he insisted that he never would, Peter showed how little he understood what there was in himself. But when I read his epistle and hear him say: “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye, for the Spirit of God and of glory resteth upon you,” then I say that it is not the old Peter, but that is the very Spirit of Christ breathing and speaking within him.
I read again how he says: “Hereunto ye are called, to suffer, even as Christ suffered.” I understand what a change had come over Peter. Instead of denying Christ, he found joy and pleasure in having self denied and crucified and given up to the death. And therefore it is in the Acts we read that, when he was called before the Council, he could boldly say: “We must obey God rather than men,” and that he could return with the other disciples and rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s name.
You remember his self-exaltation; but now he has found out that “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit is in the sight of God of great price.” Again he tells us to be “subject one to another, and be clothed with humility.”
Dear friend, I beseech you, look at Peter utterly changed — the self-pleasing, the self-trusting, the self-seeking Peter, full of sin, continually getting into trouble, foolish and impetuous, but now filled with the Spirit and the life of Jesus. Christ had done it for him by the Holy Ghost.
And now, what is my object in having thus very briefly pointed to the story of Peter? That story must be the history of every believer who is really to be made a blessing by God. That story is a prophecy of what everyone can receive from God in Heaven.
Now let us just glance hurriedly at what these lessons teach us.
The first lesson is this — You may be a very earnest, godly, devoted believer, in whom the power of the flesh is yet very strong.
That is a very solemn truth. Peter, before he denied Christ, had cast out devils and had healed the sick; and yet the flesh had power, and the flesh had room in him. Oh, beloved, we want to realize that it is just because there is so much of that self-life in us that the power of God cannot work in us as mightily as God is willing that it should work. Do you realize that the great God is longing to double His blessing, to give tenfold blessing through us? But there is something hindering Him, and that something is a proof of nothing but the self-life. We talk about the pride of Peter, and the impetuosity of Peter, and the self-confidence of Peter. It all rooted in that one word, self. Christ had said, “Deny self,” and Peter had never understood, and never obeyed; and every failing came out of that.
What a solemn thought, and what an urgent plea for us to cry: O God, do discover this to us, that none of us may be living the self-life! It has happened to many a one who had been a Christian for years, who had perhaps occupied a prominent position, that God found him out and taught him to find himself out, and he became utterly ashamed, falling down broken before God. Oh, the bitter shame and sorrow and pain and agony that came to him, until at last he found that there was deliverance! Peter went out and wept bitterly, and there may be many a godly one in whom the power of the flesh still rules.
And then my second lesson is — It is the work of our blessed Lord Jesus to discover the power of self.
How was it that Peter, the carnal Peter, self-willed Peter, Peter with the strong self-love, ever became a man of Pentecost and the writer of his epistle? It was because Christ had him in charge, and Christ watched over him, and Christ taught and blessed him. The warnings that Christ had given him were part of the training; and last of all there came that look of love. In His suffering Christ did not forget him, but turned round and looked upon him, and “Peter went out and wept bitterly.” And the Christ who led Peter to Pentecost is waiting today to take charge of every heart that is willing to surrender itself to Him.
Are there not some saying: “Ah! that is the mischief with me; it is always the self-life, and self-comfort, and self-consciousness, and self-pleasing, and self-will; how am I to get rid of it?”
My answer is: It is Christ Jesus who can rid you of it; none else but Christ Jesus can give deliverance from the power of self. And what does He ask you to do? He asks that you should humble yourself before Him.

Andrew Murray

SEPARATED UNTO THE H

2005-11-09T20:50:00.000-08:00

SEPARATED UNTO THE HOLY GHOST

“Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of. Cyrene, and Manaen ... and Saul.
“As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.
“And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia” (Acts 13:1-4).

In the story of our text we shall find some precious thoughts to guide us as to what God would have of us, and what God would do for us. The great lesson of the verses quoted is this: The Holy Ghost is the director of the work of God upon the earth. And what we should do if we are to work rightly for God, and if God is to bless our work, is to see that we stand in a right relation to the Holy Ghost, that we give Him every day the place of honor that belongs to Him, and that in all our work and (what is more) in all our private inner life, the Holy Ghost shall always have the first place. Let me point out to you some of the precious thoughts our passage suggests.
First of all, we see that God has His own plans with regard to His kingdom.
His church at Antioch had been established. God had certain plans and intentions with regard to Asia, and with regard to Europe., He had conceived them; they were His, and He made them known to His servants.
Our great Commander organizes every campaign, and His generals and officers do not always know the great plans. They often receive sealed orders, and they have to wait on Him for what He gives them as orders. God in Heaven has wishes, and a will, in regard to any work that ought to be done, and to the way in which it has to be done. Blessed is the man who gets into God’s secrets and works under God.
Some years ago, at Wellington, South Africa, where I live, we opened a Mission Institute — what is counted there a fine large building. At our opening services the principal said something that I have never forgotten. He remarked:
“Last year we gathered here to lay the foundation-stone, and what was there then to be seen? Nothing but rubbish, and stones, and bricks, and ruins of an old building that had been pulled down. There we laid the foundation-stone, and very few knew what the building was that was to rise. No one know it perfectly in every detail except one man, the architect. In his mind it was all clear, and as the contractor and the mason and the carpenter came to their work they took their orders from him, and the humblest laborer had to be obedient to orders, and the structure rose, and this beautiful building has been completed. And just so,” he added, “this building that we open today is but laying the foundation of a work of which only God knows what is to become.”
But God has His workers and His plans clearly mapped out, and our position is to wait, that God should communicate to us as much of His will as each time is needful.
We have simply to be faithful in obedience, carrying out His orders. God has a plan for His Church upon earth. But alas! we too often make our plan, and we think that we know what ought to be done. We ask God first to bless our feeble efforts, instead of absolutely refusing to go unless God go before us. God has planned for the work and the extension of His kingdom. The Holy Ghost has had that work given in charge to Him. “The work whereunto I have called them.” May God, therefore, help us all to be afraid of touching “the ark of God” except as we are led by the Holy Ghost.
Then the second thought — God is willing and able to reveal to His servants what His will is.
Yes, blessed be God, communications still come down from Heaven! As we read here what the Holy Ghost said, so the Holy Ghost will still speak to His Church and His people. In these later days He has often done it. He has come to individual men, and by His divine teaching He has led them out into fields of labor that others could not at first understand or approve, into ways and methods that did not recommend themselves to the majority. But the Holy Ghost does still in our time teach His people. Thank God, in our foreign missionary societies and in our home missions, and in a thousand forms of work, the guiding of the Holy Ghost is known, but (we are all ready, I think, to confess) too little known. We have not learned enough to wait upon Him, and so we should make a solemn declaration before God: O God, we want to wait more for Thee to show us Thy Will.
Do not ask God only for power. Many a Christian has his own plan of working, but God must send the power. The man works in his own will, and God must give the grace — the one reason why God often gives so little grace and so little success. But let us all take our place before God and say:
“What is done in the will of God the strength of God will not be withheld from it; what is done in the will of God must have the mighty blessing of God.”
And so let our first desire be to have the will of God revealed.
If you ask me, Is it an easy thing to get these communications from Heaven, and to understand them? I can give you the answer. It is easy to those who are in right fellowship with Heaven, and who understand the art of waiting upon God in prayer.
How often we ask: How can a person know the will of God? And people want, when they are in perplexity, to pray very earnestly that God should answer them at once. But God can only reveal His will. to a heart that is humble and tender and empty. God can only reveal His will in perplexities and special difficulties to a heart that has learned to obey and honor Him loyally in little things and in daily life.
That brings me to the third thought — Note the disposition to which the Spirit reveals God’s will.
What do we read here? There were a number of men ministering to the Lord and fasting, and the Holy Ghost came and spoke to them. Some people understand this passage very much as they would in reference to a missionary committee of our day. We see there is an open field, and we have had our missions in other fields, and we are going to get on to that field. We have virtually settled that, and we pray about it. But the position was a very different one in those former days. I doubt whether any of them thought of Europe, for later on even Paul himself tried to go back into Asia, till the night vision called him by the will of God. Look at those men. God had done wonders. He had extended the Church to Antioch, and He had given rich and large blessing. Now, here were these men ministering to the Lord, serving Him with prayer and fasting. What a deep conviction they have — “It must all come direct from Heaven. We are in fellowship with the risen Lord; we must have a close union with Him, and somehow He will let us know what He wants.” And there they were, empty, ignorant, helpless, glad and joyful, but deeply humbled.
“O Lord,” they seem to say, “we are Thy servants, and in fasting and prayer we wait upon Thee. What is Thy will for us?”
Was it not the same with Peter? He was on the housetop, fasting and praying, and little did he think of the vision and the command to go to Caesarea. He was ignorant of what his work might be.
It is in hearts entirely surrendered to the Lord Jesus, in hearts separating themselves from the world, and even from ordinary religious exercises, and giving themselves up in intense prayer to look to their Lord — it is in such hearts that the heavenly will of God will be made manifest.
You know that word fasting occurs a second time (in the third verse): “They fasted and prayed.” When you pray, you love to go into your closet, according to the command of Jesus, and shut the door. You shut out business and company and pleasure and anything that can distract, and you want to be alone with God. But in one way even the material world follows you there. You must eat. These men wanted to shut themselves out from the influences of the material and the visible, and they fasted. What they ate was simply enough to supply the wants of nature, and in the intensity of their souls they thought to give expression to their letting go of everything on earth in their fasting before God. Oh, may God give us that intensity of desire, that separation from everything, because we want to wait upon God, that the Holy Ghost may reveal to us God’s blessed will.
The fourth thought — What is now the will of God as the Holy Ghost reveals it? It is contained in one phrase: Separation unto the Holy Ghost. That is the keynote of the message from Heaven.
“Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. The work is mine, and I care for it, and I have chosen these men and called them, and I want you who represent the Church of Christ upon earth to set them apart unto me.”
Look at this heavenly message in its twofold aspect. The men were to be set apart to the Holy Ghost, and the Church was to do this separating work. The Holy Ghost could trust these men to do it in a right spirit. There they were abiding in fellowship with the heavenly, and the Holy Ghost could say to them, “Do the work of separating these men.” And these were the men the Holy Ghost had prepared, and He could say of them, “Let them be separated unto me.”
Here we come to the very root, to the very life of the need of Christian workers. The question is: What is needed that the power of God should rest upon us more mightily, that the blessing of God should be poured out more abundantly among those poor, wretched people and perishing sinners among whom we labor? And the answer from Heaven is:
“I want men separated unto the Holy Ghost.”
What does that imply? You know that there are two spirits on earth. Christ said, when He spoke about the Holy Spirit: “The world cannot receive him.” Paul said: “We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is of God.” That is the great want in every worker — the spirit of the world going out, and the Spirit of God coming in to take possession of the inner life and of the whole being.
I am sure there are workers who often cry to God for the Holy Spirit to come upon them as a Spirit of power for their work, and when they feel that measure of power, and get blessing, they thank God for it. But God wants something more and something higher. God wants us to seek for the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of power in our own heart and life, to conquer self and cast out sin, and to work the blessed and beautiful image of Jesus into us.
There is a difference between the power of the Spirit as a gift, and the power of the Spirit for the grace of a holy life. A man may often have a measure of the power of the Spirit, but if there be not a large measure of the Spirit as the Spirit of grace and holiness, the defect will be manifest in his work. He may be made the means of conversion, but he never will help people on to a higher standard of spiritual life, and when he passes away, a great deal of his work may pass away too. But a man who is separated unto the Holy Ghost is a man who is given up to say:
“Father, let the Holy Ghost have full dominion over me, in my home, in my temper, in every word of my tongue, in every thought of my heart, in every feeling toward my fellow men; let the Holy Spirit have entire possession.”
Is that what has been the longing and the covenant of your heart with your God — to be a man or a woman separated and given up unto the Holy Ghost? I pray you listen to the voice of Heaven. “Separate me,” said the Holy Ghost. Yes, separated unto the Holy Ghost. May God grant that the Word may enter into the very depths of our being to search us, and if we discover that we have not come out from the world entirely, if God discovers to us that the self-life, self-will, self-exaltation are there, let us humble ourselves before Him.
Man, woman, brother, sister, you are a worker separated unto the Holy Ghost. Is that true? Has that been your longing desire? Has that been your surrender? Has that been what you have expected through faith in the power of our risen and almighty Lord Jesus? If not, here is the call of faith, and here is the key of blessing — separated unto the Holy Ghost. God write the word in our hearts!
I said the Holy Spirit spoke to that church as a church capable of doing that work. The Holy Spirit trusted them. God grant that our churches, our missionary societies, and our workers’ unions, that all our directors and councils and committees may be men and women who are fit for the work of separating workers unto the Holy Spirit. We can ask God for that too.
Then comes my fifth thought, and it is this — This holy partnership with the Holy Spirit in this work becomes a matter of consciousness and of action.
These men, what did they do? They set apart Paul and Barnabas, and then it is written of the two that they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, went down to Seleucia. Oh, what fellowship! The Holy Spirit in Heaven doing part of the work, men on earth doing the other part. After the ordination of the men upon earth, it is written in God’s inspired Word that they were sent forth by the Holy Ghost.
And see how this partnership calls to new prayer and fasting. They had for a certain time been ministering to the Lord and fasting, perhaps days; and the Holy Spirit speaks, and they have to do the work and to enter into partnership, and at once they come together for more prayer and fasting. That is the spirit in which they obey the command of their Lord. And that teaches us that it is not only in the beginning of our Christian work, but all along that we need to have our strength in prayer. If there is one thought with regard to the Church of Christ, which at times comes to me with overwhelming sorrow; if there is one thought in regard to my own life of which I am ashamed; if there is one thought of which I feel that the Church of Christ has not accepted it and not grasped it; if there is one thought which makes me pray to God: “Oh, teach us by Thy grace, new things” — it is the wonderful power that prayer is meant to have in the kingdom. We have so little availed ourselves of it.
We have all read the expression of Christian in Bunyan’s great work, when he found he had the key in his breast that should unlock the dungeon. We have the key that can unlock the dungeon of atheism and of heathendom. But, oh! we are far more occupied with our work than we are with prayer. We believe more in speaking to men than we believe in speaking to God. Learn from these men that the work which the Holy Ghost commands must call us to new fasting and prayer, to new separation from the spirit and the pleasures of the world, to new consecration to God and to His fellowship. Those men gave themselves up to fasting and prayer, and if in all our ordinary Christian work there were more prayer, there would be more blessing in our own inner life. If we felt and proved and testified to the world that our only strength lay in keeping every minute in contact with Christ, every minute allowing God to work in us — if that were our spirit, would not, by the grace of God, our lives be holier? Would not they be more abundantly fruitful?
I hardly know a more solemn warning in God’s Word than that which we find in the third chapter of Galatians, where Paul asked:
“Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”
Do you understand what that means? A terrible danger in Christian work, just as in a Christian life that is begun with much prayer, begun in the Holy Spirit, is that it may be gradually shunted off on to the lines of the flesh; and the word comes: “Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” In the time of our first perplexity and helplessness we prayed much to God, and God answered and God blessed, and our organization became perfected, and our band of workers became large; but gradually the organization and the work and the rush have so taken possession of us that the power of the Spirit, in which we began when we were a small company, has almost been lost. Oh, I pray you, note it well! It was with new prayer and fasting, with more prayer and fasting, that this company of disciples carried out the command of the Holy Ghost, “My soul, wait thou only upon God.” That is our highest and most important work. The Holy Spirit comes in answer to believing prayer.
You know when the exalted Jesus had ascended to the throne, for ten days the footstool of the throne was the place where His waiting disciples cried to Him. And that is the law of the kingdom — the King upon the throne, the servants upon the footstool. May God find us there unceasingly!
Then comes the last thought — What a wonderful blessing comes when the Holy Ghost is allowed to lead and to direct the work, and when it is carried on in obedience to Him!
You know the story of the mission on which Barnabas and Saul were sent out. You know what power there was with them. The Holy Ghost sent them, and they went on from place to place with large blessing. The Holy Ghost was their leader further on. You recollect how it was by the Spirit that Paul was hindered from going again into Asia, and was led away over to Europe. Oh, the blessing that rested upon that little company of men, and upon their ministry unto the Lord!
I pray you, let us learn to believe that God has a blessing for us. The Holy Ghost, into whose hands God has put the work, has been called “the executive of the Holy Trinity.” The Holy Ghost has not only power, but He has the Spirit of love. He is brooding over this dark world and every sphere of work in it, and He is willing to bless. And why is there not more blessing? There can be but one answer. We have not honored the Holy Ghost as we should have done. Is there one who can say that that is not true? Is not every thoughtful heart ready to cry: “God forgive me that I have not honored the Holy Spirit as I should have done, that I have grieved Him, that I have allowed self and the flesh and my own will to work where the Holy Ghost should have been honored! May God forgive me that I have allowed self and the flesh and the will actually to have the place that God wanted the Holy Ghost to have.”
Oh, the sin is greater than we know! No wonder that there is so much feebleness and failure in the Church of Christ!

Andrew Murray

THE FRUIT OF THE SPI

2005-11-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS LOVE

I want to look at the fact of a life filled with the Holy Spirit more from the practical side, and to show how this life will show itself in our daily walk and conduct.
Under the Old Testament you know the Holy Spirit often came upon men as a divine Spirit of revelation to reveal the mysteries of God, or for power to do the work of God. But He did not then dwell in them. Now, many just want the Old Testament gift of power for work, but know very little of the New Testament gift of the indwelling Spirit, animating and renewing the whole life. When God gives the Holy Spirit, His great object is the formation of a holy character. It is a gift of a holy mind and spiritual disposition, and what we need above everything else, is to say:
“I must have the Holy Spirit sanctifying my whole inner life if I am really to live for God’s glory.”
You might say that when Christ promised the Spirit to the disciples, He did so that they might have power to be witnesses. True, but then they received the Holy Ghost in such heavenly power and reality that He took possession of their whole being at once and so fitted them as holy men for doing the work with power as they had to do it. Christ spoke of power to the disciples, but it was the Spirit filling their whole being that worked the power.
I wish now to dwell upon the passage found in Galatians 5:22:
“The fruit of the Spirit is love.”
We read that “Love is the fulfilling of the law,” and my desire is to speak on love as a fruit of the Spirit with a twofold object. One is that this word may be a searchlight in our hearts, and give us a test by which to try all our thoughts about the Holy Spirit and all our experience of the holy life. Let us try ourselves by this word. Has this been our daily habit, to seek the being filled with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of love? “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” Has it been our experience that the more we have of the Holy Spirit the more loving we become? In claiming the Holy Spirit we should make this the first object of our expectation. The Holy Spirit comes as a Spirit of love.
Oh, if this were true in the Church of Christ how different her state would be! May God help us to get hold of this simple, heavenly truth that the fruit of the Spirit is a love which appears in the life, and that just as the Holy Spirit gets real possession of the life, the heart will be filled with real, divine, universal love.
One of the great causes why God cannot bless His Church is the want of love. When the body is divided, there cannot be strength. In the time of their great religious wars, when Holland stood out so nobly against Spain, one of their mottoes was: “Unity gives strength.” It is only when God’s people stand as one body, one before God in the fellowship of love, one toward another in deep affection, one before the world in a love that the world can see—it is only then that they will have power to secure the blessing which they ask of God. Remember that if a vessel that ought to be one whole is cracked into many pieces, it cannot be filled. You can take a potsherd, one part of a vessel, and dip out a little water into that, but if you want the vessel full, the vessel must be whole. That is literally true of Christ’s Church, and if there is one thing we must pray for still, it is this: Lord, melt us together into one by the power of the Holy Spirit; let the Holy Spirit, who at Pentecost made them all of one heart and one soul, do His blessed work among us. Praise God, we can love each other in a divine love, for “the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Give yourselves up to love, and the Holy Spirit will come; receive the Spirit, and He will teach you to love more.
God Is Love
Now, why is it that the fruit of the Spirit is love? Because God is love.
And what does that mean?
It is the very nature and being of God to delight in communicating Himself. God has no selfishness, God keeps nothing to Himself. God’s nature is to be always giving. In the sun and the moon and the stars, in every flower you see it, in every bird in the air, in every fish, in the sea . God communicates life to His creatures. And the angels around His throne, the seraphim and cherumbim (sic) who are flames of fire — whence have they their glory? It is because God is love, and He imparts to them of His brightness and His blessedness. And we, His redeemed children — God delights to pour His love into us. And why? Because, as I said, God keeps nothing for Himself. From eternity God had His only begotten Son, and the Father gave Him all things, and nothing that God had was kept back. “God is love.”
One of the old Church fathers said that we cannot better understand the Trinity than as a revelation of divine love — the Father, the loving One, the Fountain of love; the Son, the beloved one, the Reservoir of love, in whom the love was poured out; and the Spirit, the living love that united both and then overflowed into this world. The Spirit of Pentecost, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son is love. And when the Holy Spirit comes to us and to other men, will He be less a Spirit of love than He is in God? It cannot be; He cannot change His nature. The Spirit of God is love, and “the fruit of the Spirit is love.”
Mankind Needs Love
Why is that so? That was the one great need of mankind, that was the thing which Christ’s redemption came to accomplish: to restore love to this world.
When man sinned, why was it that he sinned? Selfishness triumphed — he sought self instead of God. And just look! Adam at once begins to accuse the woman of having led him astray. Love to God had gone, love to man was lost. Look again: of the first two children of Adam the one becomes a murderer of his brother.
Does not that teach us that sin had robbed the world of love? Ah! what a proof the history of the world has been of love having been lost! There may have been beautiful examples of love even among the heathen, but only as a little remnant of what was lost. One of the worst things sin did for man was to make him selfish, for selfishness cannot love.
The Lord Jesus Christ came down from Heaven as the Son of God’s love. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” God’s Son came to show what love is, and He lived a life of love here upon earth in fellowship with His disciples, in compassion over the poor and miserable, in love even to His enemies, and He died the death of love. And when He went to Heaven, whom did He send down? The Spirit of love, to come and banish selfishness and envy and pride, and bring the love of God into the hearts of men. “The fruit of the Spirit is love.”
And what was the preparation for the promise of the Holy Spirit? You know that promise as found in the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel. But remember what precedes in the thirteenth chapter. Before Christ promised the Holy Spirit, He gave a new commandment, and about that new commandment He said wonderful things. One thing was: “Even as I have loved you, so love ye one another,” To them His dying love was to be the only law of their conduct and intercourse with each other. What a message to those fishermen, to those men full of pride and selfishness! “Learn to love each other,” said Christ, “as I have loved you.” And by the grace of God they did it. When Pentecost came, they were of one heart and one soul. Christ did it for them.
And now He calls us to dwell and to walk in love. He demands that though a man hate you, still you love him. True love cannot be conquered by anything in Heaven or upon the earth. The more hatred there is, the more love triumphs through it all and shows its true nature. This is the love that Christ commanded His disciples to exercise.
What more did He say? “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
You all know what it is to wear a badge. And Christ said to His disciples in effect: “I give you a badge, and that badge is love. That is to be your mark. It is the only thing in Heaven or on earth by which men can know me.”
Do we not begin to fear that love has fled from the earth? That if we were to ask the world: “Have you seen us wear the badge of love?” the world would say: “No; what we have heard of the Church of Christ is that there is not a place where there is no quarreling and separation.” Let us ask God with one heart that we may wear the badge of Jesus’ love. God is able to give it.
Love Conquers Selfishness
“The fruit of the Spirit is love.” Why? Because nothing but love can expel and conquer our selfishness.
Self is the great curse, whether in its relation to God, or to our fellow-men in general, or to fellow-Christians, thinking of ourselves and seeking our own. Self is our greatest curse. But, praise God, Christ came to redeem us from self. We sometimes talk about deliverance from the self-life — and thank God for every word that can be said about it to help us — but I am afraid some people think deliverance from the self-life means that now they are going to have no longer any trouble in serving God; and they forget that deliverance from self-life means to be a vessel overflowing with love to everybody all the day.
And there you have the reason why many people pray for the power of the Holy Ghost, and they get something, but oh, so little! because they prayed for power for work, and power for blessing, but they have not prayed for power for full deliverance from self. That means not only the righteous self in intercourse with God, but the unloving self in intercourse with men. And there is deliverance. “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” I bring you the glorious promise of Christ that He is able to fill our hearts with love.
A great many of us try hard at times to love. We try to force ourselves to love, and I do not say that is wrong; it is better than nothing. But the end of it is always very sad. “I fail continually,” such as one must confess. And what is the reason? The reason is simply this: Because they have never learned to believe and accept the truth that the Holy Spirit can pour God’s love into their heart. That blessed text; often it has been limited! — “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts.” It has often been understood in this sense: It means the love of God to me. oh, what a limitation! That is only the beginning. The love of God is always the love of God in its entirety, in its fullness as an indwelling power, a love of God to me that leaps back to Him in love, and overflows to my fellow-men in love-God’s love to me, and my love to God, and my love to my fellow-men. The three are one; you cannot separate them.
Do believe that the love of God can be shed abroad in your heart and mine so that we can love all the day.
“Ah!” you say, “how little I have understood that!”
Why is a lamb always gentle? Because that is its nature. Does it cost the lamb any trouble to be gentle? No. Why not? It is so beautiful and gentle. Has a lamb to study to be gentle? No. Why does that come so easy? It is its nature. And a wolf — why does it cost a wolf no trouble to be cruel, and to put its fangs into the poor lamb or sheep? Because that is its nature. It has not to summon up its courage; the wolf-nature is there.
And how can I learn to love? Never until the Spirit of God fills my heart with God’s love, and I begin to long for God’s love in a very different sense from which I have sought it so selfishly, as a comfort and a joy and a happiness and a pleasure to myself; never until I begin to learn that “God is love,” and to claim it, and receive it as an indwelling power for self-sacrifice; never until I begin to see that my glory, my blessedness, is to be like God and like Christ, in giving up everything in myself for my fellow-men. May God teach us that! Oh, the divine blessedness of the love with which the Holy Spirit can fill our hearts! “The fruit of the Spirit is love.”
Love Is God’s Gift
Once again I ask, Why must this be so? And my answer is: Without this we cannot live the daily life of love.
How often, when we speak about the consecrated life, we have to speak about temper, and some people have sometimes said:
“You make too much of temper.”
I do not think we can make too much of it. Think for a moment of a clock and of what its hands mean. The hands tell me what is within the clock, and if I see that the hands stand still, or that the hands point wrong, or that the clock is slow or fast, I say that something inside the clock is not working properly. And temper is just like the revelation that the clock gives of what is within. Temper is a proof whether the love of Christ is filling the heart, or not. How many there are who find it easier in church, or in prayer-meeting, or in work for the Lord — diligent, earnest work — to be holy and happy than in the daily life with wife and children and servant; easier to be holy and happy outside the home than in it! Where is the love of God? In Christ. God has prepared for us a wonderful redemption in Christ, and He longs to make something supernatural of us. Have we learned to long for it, and ask for it, and expect it in its fullness?
Then there is the tongue! We sometimes speak of the tongue when we talk of the better life, and the restful life, but just think what liberty many Christians give to their tongues. They say:
“I have a right to think what I like.”
When they speak about each other, when they speak about their neighbors, when they speak about other Christians, how often there are sharp remarks! God keep me from saying anything that would be unloving; God shut my mouth if I am not to speak in tender love. But what I am saying is a fact. How often there are found among Christians who are banded together in work, sharp criticism, sharp judgment, hasty opinion, unloving words, secret contempt of each other, secret condemnation of each other! Oh, just as a mother’s love covers her children and delights in them and has the tenderest compassion with their foibles or failures, so there ought to be in the heart of every believer a motherly love toward every brother and sister in Christ. Have you aimed at that? Have you sought it? Have you ever pleaded for it? Jesus Christ said: “As I have loved you ... love one another.” And He did not put that among the other commandments, but He said in effect:
“That is a new commandment, the one commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.”
It is in our daily life and conduct that the fruit of the Spirit is love. From that there comes all the graces and virtues in which love is manifested: joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness; no sharpness or hardness in your tone, no unkindness or selfishness; meekness before God and man. You see that all these are the gentler virtues. I have often thought as I read those words in Colossians, “Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering,” that if we had written, we should have put in the foreground the manly virtues, such as zeal, courage and diligence; but we need to see how the gentler, the most womanly virtues are specially connected with dependence upon the Holy Spirit. These are indeed heavenly graces. They never were found in the heathen world. Christ was needed to come from Heaven to teach us. Your blessedness is longsuffering, meekness, kindness; your glory is humility before God. The fruit of the Spirit that He brought from Heaven out of the heart of the crucified Christ, and that He gives in our heart, is first and foremost — love.
You know what John says: “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us.” That is, I cannot see God, but as a compensation I can see my brother, and if I love him, God dwells in me. Is that really true? That I cannot see God, but I must love my brother, and God will dwell in me? Loving my brother is the way to real fellowship with God. You know what John further says in that most solemn test, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (I John 4:20). There is a brother, a most unlovable man. He worries you every time you meet him. He is of the very opposite disposition to yours. You are a careful businessman, and you have to do with him in your business. He is most untidy, unbusiness-like. You say:
“I cannot love him.”
Oh, friend, you have not learned the lesson that Christ wanted to teach above everything. Let a man be what he will, you are to love him. Love is to be the fruit of the Spirit all the day and every day. Yes, listen! if a man loves not his brother whom he hath seen — if you don’t love that unlovable man whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen? You can deceive yourself with beautiful thoughts about loving God. You must prove your love to God by your love to your brother; that is the one standard by which God will judge your love to Him. If the love of God is in your heart you will love your brother. The fruit of the Spirit is love.
And what is the reason that God’s Holy Spirit cannot come in power? Is it not possible?
You remember the comparison I used in speaking of the vessel. I can dip a little water into a potsherd, a bit of a vessel; but if a vessel is to be full, it must be unbroken. And the children of God, wherever they come together, to whatever church or mission or society they belong, must love each other intensely, or the Spirit of God cannot do His work. We talk about grieving the Spirit of God by worldliness and ritualism and formality and error and indifference, but, I tell you, the one thing above everything that grieves God’s Spirit is this want of love. Let every heart search itself, and ask that God may search it.
Our Love Shows God’s Power
Why are we taught that “the fruit of the Spirit is love”? Because the Spirit of God has come to make our daily life an exhibition of divine power and a revelation of what God can do for His children.
In the second and the fourth chapters of Acts we read that the disciples were of one heart and of one soul. During the three years they had walked with Christ they never had been in that spirit. All Christ’s teaching could not make them of one heart and one soul. But the Holy Spirit came from Heaven and shed the love of God in their hearts, and they were of one heart and one soul. The same Holy Spirit that brought the love of Heaven into their hearts must fill us too. Nothing less will do. Even as Christ did, one might preach love for three years with the tongue of an angel, but that would not teach any man to love unless the power of the Holy Spirit should come upon him to bring the love of Heaven into his heart.
Think of the church at large. What divisions! Think of the different bodies. Take the question of holiness, take the question of the cleansing blood, take the question of the baptism of the Spirit — what differences are caused among dear believers by such questions! That there are differences of opinion does not trouble me. We do not have the same constitution and temperament and mind. But how often hate, bitterness, contempt, separation, unlovingness are caused by the holiest truths of God’s Word! Our doctrines, our creeds, have been more important than love. We often think we are valiant for the truth and we forget God’s command to speak the truth in love. And it was so in the time of the Reformation between the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches. What bitterness there was than in regard to the Holy Supper, which was meant to be the bond of union among all believers! And so, down the ages, the very dearest truths of God have become mountains that have separated us.
If we want to pray in power, and if we want to expect the Holy Spirit to come down in power, and if we want indeed that God shall pour out His Spirit, we must enter into a covenant with God that we love one another with a heavenly love.
Are you ready for that? Only that is true love that is large enough to take in all God’s children, the most unloving and unlovable, and unworthy, and unbearable, and trying. If my vow — absolute surrender to God — was true, then it must mean absolute surrender to the divine love to fill me; to be a servant of love to love every child of God around me. “The fruit of the Spirit is love.”
Oh, God did something wonderful when He gave Christ, at His right hand, the Holy Spirit to come down out of the heart of the Father and His everlasting love. And how we have degraded the Holy Spirit into a mere power by which we have to do our work! God forgive us! Oh, that the Holy Spirit might be held in honor as a power to fill us with the very life and nature of God and of Christ!
Christian Work Requires Love
“The fruit of the Spirit is love.” I ask once again, Why is it so? And the answer comes: That is the only power in which Christians really can do their work.
Yes, it is that we need. We want not only love that is to bind us to each other, but we want a divine love in our work for the lost around us. Oh, do we not often undertake a great deal of work, just as men undertake work of philanthropy, from a natural spirit of compassion for our fellow-men? Do we not often undertake Christian work because our minister or friend calls us to it? And do we not often perform Christian work with a certain zeal but without having had a baptism of love?
People often ask: “What is the baptism of fire?”
I have answered more than once: I know no fire like the fire of God, the fire of everlasting love that consumed the sacrifice on Calvary. The baptism of love is what the Church needs, and to get that we must begin at once to get down upon our faces before God in confession, and plead:
“Lord, let love from Heaven flow down into my heart. I am giving up my life to pray and live as one who has given himself up for the everlasting love to dwell in and fill him.”
Ah, yes, if the love of God were in our hearts, what a difference it would make! There are hundreds of believers who say:
“I work for Christ, and I feel I could work much harder, but I have not the gift. I do not know how or where to begin. I do not know what I can do.”
Brother, sister, ask God to baptize you with the Spirit of love, and love will find its way. Love is a fire that will burn through every difficulty. You may be a shy, hesitating man, who cannot speak well, but love can burn through everything. God fill us with love! We need it for our work.
You have read many a touching story of love expressed, and you have said, How beautiful! I heard one not long ago. A lady had been asked to speak at a Rescue Home where there were a number of poor women. As she arrived there and got to the window with the matron, she saw outside a wretched object sitting, and asked:
“Who is that?”
The matron answered: “She has been into the house thirty or forty times, and she has always gone away again. Nothing can be done with her, she is so low and hard.”
But the lady said: “She must come in.”
The matron then said: “We have been waiting for you, and the company is assembled, and you have only an hour for the address.”
The lady replied: “No, this is of more importance”; and she went outside where the woman was sitting and said:
“My sister, what is the matter?”
“I am not your sister,” was the reply.
Then the lady laid her hand on her, and said: “Yes, I am your sister, and I love you”; and so she spoke until the heart of the poor woman was touched.
The conversation lasted some time, and the company were waiting patiently. Ultimately the lady brought the woman into the room. There was the poor wretched, degraded creature, full of shame. She would not sit on a chair, but sat down on a stool beside the speaker’s seat, and she let her lean against her, with her arms around the poor woman’s neck, while she spoke to the assembled people. And that love touched the woman’s heart; she had found one who really loved her, and that love gave access to the love of Jesus.
Praise God! there is love upon earth in the hearts of God’s children; but oh, that there were more!
O God, baptize our ministers with a tender love, and our missionaries, and our colporters, and our Bible-readers, and our workers, and our young men’s and young women’s associations. Oh, that God would begin with us now, and baptize us with heavenly love!
Love Inspires Intercession
Once again. It is only love that can fit us for the work of intercession.
I have said that love must fit us for our work. Do you know what the hardest and the most important work is that has to be done for this sinful world? It is the work of intercession, the work of going to God and taking time to lay hold on Him.
A man may be an earnest Christian, an earnest minister, and a man may do good, but alas! how often he has to confess that he knows but little of what it is to tarry with God. May God give us the great gift of an intercessory spirit, a spirit of prayer and supplication! Let me ask you in the name of Jesus not to let a day pass without praying for all saints, and for all God’s people.
I find there are Christians who think little of that. I find there are prayer unions where they pray for the members, and not for all believers. I pray you, take time to pray for the Church of Christ. It is right to pray for the heathen, as I have already said. God help us to pray more for them. It is right to pray for missionaries and for evangelistic work, and for the unconverted. But Paul did not tell people to pray for the heathen or the unconverted. Paul told them to pray for believers. Do make this your first prayer every day: “Lord, bless Thy saints everywhere.”
The state of Christ’s Church is indescribably low. Plead for God’s people that He would visit them, plead for each other, plead for all believers who are trying to work for God. Let love fill your heart. Ask Christ to pour it out afresh into you every day. Try to get it into you by the Holy Spirit of God: I am separated unto the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit is love. God help us to understand it.
May God grant that we learn day by day to wait more quietly upon Him. Do not wait upon God only for ourselves, or the power to do so will soon be lost; but give ourselves up to the ministry and the love of intercession, and pray more for God’s people, for God’s people round about us, for the Spirit of love in ourselves and in them, and for the work of God we are connected with; and the answer will surely come, and our waiting upon God will be a source of untold blessing and power. “The fruit of the Spirit is love.”
Have you a lack of love to confess before God? Then make confession and say before Him, “O Lord, my lack of heart, my lack of love — I confess it.” And then, as you cast that lack at His feet, believe that the blood cleanses you, that Jesus comes in His mighty, cleansing, saving power to deliver you, and that He will give His Holy Spirit.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love.”

Andrew Murray

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER

2005-11-09T20:45:00.000-08:00

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER

“And Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben-hadad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine and all that I have” (I Kings 20: 1-4).

What Ben Hadad asked was absolute surrender; and what Ahab gave was what was asked of him—absolute surrender. I want to use these words: “My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have,” as the words of absolute surrender with which every child of God ought to yield himself to his Father. We have heard it before, but we need to hear it very definitely — the condition of God’s blessing is absolute surrender of all into His hands. Praise God! If our hearts are willing for that, there is no end to what God will do for us, and to the blessing God will bestow.
Absolute surrender — let me tell you where I got those words. I used them myself often, and you have heard them numberless times. But in Scotland once I was in a company where we were talking about the condition of Christ’s Church, and what the great need of the Church and of believers is; and there was in our company a godly worker who has much to do in training workers, and I asked him what he would say was the great need of the Church, and the message that ought to be preached. He answered very quietly and simply and determinedly:
“Absolute surrender to God is the one thing.”
The words struck me as never before. And that man began to tell how, in the workers with whom he’ had to deal, he finds that if they are sound on that point, even though they be backward, they are willing to be taught and helped, and they always improve; whereas others who are not sound there very often go back and leave the work. The condition for obtaining God’s full blessing is absolute surrender to Him.
And now, I desire by God’s grace to give to you this message — that your God in Heaven answers the prayers which you have offered for blessing on yourselves and for blessing on those around you by this one demand: Are you willing to surrender yourselves absolutely into His hands? What is our answer to be? God knows there are hundreds of hearts who have said it, and there are hundreds more who long to say it but hardly dare to do so. And there are hearts who have said it, but who have yet miserably failed, and who feel themselves condemned because they did not find the secret of the power to live that life. May God have a word for all!
Let me say, first of all, that God claims it from us.
God Expects Your Surrender
Yes, it has its foundation in the very nature of God God cannot do otherwise. Who is God? He is the Fountain of life, the only Source of existence and power and goodness, and throughout the universe there is nothing good but what God works, God has created the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the flowers, and the trees, and the grass; and are they not all absolutely surrendered to God? Do they not allow God to work in them just what He pleases? When God clothes the lily with its beauty, is it not yielded up, surrendered, given over to God as He works in it its beauty? And God’s redeemed children, oh, can you think that God can work His work if there is only half or a part of them surrendered? God cannot do it. God is life, and love, and blessing, and power, and infinite beauty, and God delights to communicate Himself to every child who is prepared to receive Him; but ah! this one lack of absolute surrender is just the thing that hinders God. And now He comes, and as God, He claims it.
You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing, and that pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another holds it partly, I cannot write properly. This coat is absolutely given up to me to, cover my body. This building is entirely given up to religious services. And now, do you expect that in your immortal being, in the divine nature that you have received by regeneration, God can work His work, every day and every hour, unless you are entirely given up to Him? God cannot. The Temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered to God when it was dedicated to Him. And every one of us is a temple of God, in which God will dwell and work mightily on one condition — absolute surrender to Him. God claims it, God is worthy of it, and without it God cannot work His blessed work in us..
God not only claims it, but God will work it Himself.
God Accomplishes Your Surrender
I am sure there is many a heart that says: “Ah, but that absolute surrender implies so much!” Someone says: “Oh, I have passed through so much trial and suffering, and there is so much of the self-life still remaining, and I dare not face the entire giving of it up, because I know it will cause so much trouble and agony.”
Alas! alas! that God’s children have such thoughts of Him, such cruel thoughts. Oh, I come to you with a message, fearful and anxious one. God does not ask you to give the perfect surrender in your strength, or by the power of your will; God is willing to work it in you. Do we not read: “It is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure”? And that is what we should seek for — to go on our faces before God, until our hearts learn to believe that the everlasting God Himself will come in to turn out what is wrong, to conquer what is evil, and to work what is well-pleasing in His blessed sight. God Himself will work it in you.
Look at the men in the Old Testament, like Abraham. Do you think it was by accident that God found that man, the father of the faithful and the Friend of God, and that it was Abraham himself, apart from God, who had such faith and such obedience and such devotion? You know it is not so. God raised him up and prepared him as an instrument for His glory.
Did not God say to Pharaoh: “For this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power”?
And if God said that of him, will not God say it far more of every child of His?
Oh, I want to encourage you, and I want you to cast away every fear. Come with that feeble desire; and if there is the fear which says: “Oh, my desire is not strong enough, I am not willing for everything that may come, I do not feel bold enough to say I can conquer everything” — I pray you, learn to know and trust your God now. Say: “My God, I am willing that Thou shouldst make me willing.” If there is anything holding you back, or any sacrifice you are afraid of making, come to God now, and prove how gracious your God is, and be not afraid that He will command from you what He will not bestow.
God comes and offers to work this absolute surrender in you. All these searchings and hungerings and longings that are in your heart, I tell you they are the drawings of the divine magnet, Christ Jesus. He lived a life of absolute surrender, He has possession of you; He is living in your heart by His Holy Spirit. You have hindered and hindered Him terribly, but He desires to help you to get hold of Him entirely. And He comes and draws you now by His message and words. Will you not come and trust God to work in you that absolute surrender to Himself? Yes, blessed be God, He can do it, and He will do it.
God not only claims it and works it, but God accepts it when we bring it to Him.
God Accepts Your Surrender
God works it in the secret of our heart, God urges us by the hidden power of His Holy Spirit to come and speak it out, and we have to bring and to yield to Him that absolute surrender. But remember, when you come and bring God that absolute surrender, it may, as far as your feelings or your consciousness go, be a thing of great imperfection, and you may doubt and hesitate and say:
“Is it absolute?”
But, oh, remember there was once a man to whom Christ had said:
“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
And his heart was afraid, and he cried out:
“Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.”
That was a faith that triumphed over the Devil, and the evil spirit was cast out. And if you come and say: “Lord, I yield myself in absolute surrender to my God,” even though it be with a trembling heart and with the consciousness: “I do not feel the power, I do not feel the determination, I do not feel the assurance,” it will succeed. Be not afraid, but come just as you are, and even in the midst of your trembling the power of the Holy Ghost will work.
Have you never yet learned the lesson that the Holy Ghost works with mighty power, while on the human side everything appears feeble? Look at the Lord Jesus Christ in Gethsemane. We read that He, “through the eternal Spirit,” offered Himself a sacrifice unto God. The Almighty Spirit of God was enabling Him to do it. And yet what agony and fear and exceeding sorrow came over Him, and how He prayed! Externally, you can see no sign of the mighty power of the Spirit, but the Spirit of God was there. And even so, while you are feeble and fighting and trembling, in faith in the hidden work of God’s Spirit do not fear, but yield yourself.
And when you do yield yourself in absolute surrender, let it be in the faith that God does now accept of it. That is the great point, and that is what we so often miss — that believers should be thus occupied with God in this matter of surrender. I pray you, be occupied with God. We want to get help, every one of us, so that in our daily life God shall be clearer to us, God shall have the right place, and be “all in all.” And if we are to have that through life, let us begin now and look away from ourselves, and look up to God. Let each believe — while I, a poor worm on earth and a trembling child of God, full of failure and sin and fear, bow here, and no one knows what passes through my heart, and while I in simplicity say, O God, I accept Thy terms; I have pleaded for blessing on myself and others, I have accepted Thy terms of absolute surrender — while your heart says that in deep silence, remember there is a God present that takes note of it, and writes it down in His book, and there is a God present who at that very moment takes possession of you. You may not feel it, you may not realize it, but God takes possession if you will trust Him..
God not only claims it, and works it, and accepts it when I bring it, but God maintains it.
God Maintains Your Surrender
That is the great difficulty with many. People say: “I have often been stirred at a meeting, or at a convention, and I have consecrated myself to God, but it has passed away. I know it may last for a week or for a month, but away it fades, and after a time it is all gone.”
But listen! It is because you do not believe what I am now going to tell you and remind you of. When God has begun the work of absolute surrender in you, and when God has accepted your surrender, then God holds Himself bound to care for it and to keep it. Will you believe that?
In this matter of surrender there are two: God and I — I a worm, God the everlasting and omnipotent Jehovah. Worm, will you be afraid to trust yourself to this mighty God now? God is willing. Do you not believe that He can keep you continually, day by day, and moment by moment?

Moment by moment I’m kept in His love;
Moment by moment I’ve life from above.

If God allows the sun to shine upon you moment by moment, without intermission, will not God let His life shine upon you every moment? And why have you not experienced it? Because you have not trusted God for it, and you do not surrender yourself absolutely to God in that trust.
A life of absolute surrender has its difficulties. I do not deny that. Yes, it has something far more than difficulties: it is a life that with men is absolutely impossible. But by the grace of God, by the power of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, it is a life to which we are destined, and a life that is possible for us, praise God! Let us believe that God will maintain it.
Some of you have read the words of that aged saint who, on his ninetieth birthday, told of all God’s goodness to him — I mean George Muller. What did he say he believed to be the secret of his happiness, and of all the blessing which God had given him? He said he believed there were two reasons. The one was that he had been enabled by grace to maintain a good conscience before God day by day; the other was, that he was a lover of God’s Word. Ah, yes, a good conscience is complete obedience to God day by day, and fellowship with God every day in His Word, and prayer — that is a life of absolute surrender..
Such a life has two sides — on the one side, absolute surrender to work what God wants you to do; on the other side, to let God work what He wants to do.
First, to do what God wants you to do.
Give up yourselves absolutely to the will of God. You know something of that will; not enough, far from all. But say absolutely to the Lord God: “By Thy grace I desire to do Thy will in everything, every moment of every day.” Say: “Lord God, not a word upon my tongue but for Thy glory, not a movement of my temper but for Thy glory, not an affection of love or hate in my heart but for Thy glory, and according to Thy blessed will.”
Someone says: “Do you think that possible?”
I ask, What has God promised you, and what can God do to fill a vessel absolutely surrendered to Him? Oh, God wants to bless you in a way beyond what you expect. From the beginning, ear hath not heard, neither hath the eye seen, what God hath prepared for them that wait for Him. God has prepared unheard-of-things, blessings much more wonderful than you can imagine, more mighty than you can conceive. They are divine blessings. Oh, say now:
“I give myself absolutely to God, to His will, to do only what God wants.”
It is God who will enable you to carry out the surrender.
And, on the other side, come and say: “I give myself absolutely to God, to let Him work in me to will and to do of His good pleasure, as He has promised to do.”
Yes, the living God wants to work in His children in a way that we cannot understand, but that God’s Word has revealed, and He wants to work in us every moment of the day. God is willing to maintain our life. Only let our absolute surrender be one of simple, childlike, and unbounded trust.
God Blesses When You Surrender
This absolute surrender to God will wonderfully bless.
What Ahab said to his enemy, King Ben-hadad — “My lord, O king, according to thy word I am thine, and all that I have” — shall we not say to our God and loving Father? If we do say it, God’s blessing will come upon us. God wants us to be separate from the world; we are called to come out from the world that hates God. Come out for God, and say: “Lord, anything for Thee.” If you say that with prayer, and speak that into God’s ear, He will accept it, and He will teach you what it means.s.
I say again, God will bless you. You have been praying for blessing. But do remember, there must be absolute surrender. At every tea-table you see it. Why is tea poured into that cup? Because it is empty, and given up for the tea. But put ink, or vinegar, or wine into it, and will they pour the tea into the vessel? And can God fill you, can God bless you if you are not absolutely surrendered to Him? He cannot. Let us believe God has wonderful blessings for us, if we will but stand up for God, and say, be it with a trembling will, yet with a believing heart:
“O God, I accept Thy demands. I am thine and all that I have. Absolute surrender is what my soul yields to Thee by divine grace.”
You may not have such strong and clear feelings of deliverances as you would desire to have, but humble yourselves in His sight, and acknowledge that you have grieved the Holy Spirit by your self-will, self-confidence, and self-effort. Bow humbly before him in the confession of that, and ask him to break the heart and to bring you into the dust before Him. Then, as you bow before Him, just accept God’s teaching that in your flesh “there dwelleth no good thing,” and that nothing will help you except another life which must come in. You must deny self once for all. Denying self must every moment be the power of your life, and then Christ will come in and take possession of you.
When was Peter delivered? When was the change accomplished? The change began with Peter weeping, and the Holy Ghost came down and filled his heart.
God the Father loves to give us the power of the Spirit. We have the Spirit of God dwelling within us. We come to God confessing that, and praising God for it, and yet confessing how we have grieved the Spirit. And then we bow our knees to the Father to ask that He would strengthen us with all might by the Spirit in the inner man, and that He would fill us with His mighty power. And as the Spirit reveals Christ to us, Christ comes to live in our hearts forever, and the self-life is cast out.
Let us bow before God in humility, and in that humility confess before Him the state of the whole Church. No words can tell the sad state of the Church of Christ on earth. I wish I had words to speak what I sometimes feel about it. just think of the Christians around you. I do not speak of nominal Christians, or of professing Christians, but I speak of hundreds and thousands of honest, earnest Christians who are not living a life in the power of God or to His glory. So little power, so little devotion or consecration to God, so little perception of the truth that a Christian is a man utterly surrendered to God’s will! Oh, we want to confess the sins of God’s people around us, and to humble ourselves. We are members of that sickly body, and the sickliness of the body will hinder us, and break us down, unless we come to God, and in confession separate ourselves from partnership with worldliness, with coldness toward each other, unless we give up ourselves to be entirely and wholly for God.
How much Christian work is being done in the spirit of the flesh and in the power of self! How much work, day by day, in which human energy — our will and our thoughts about the work — is continually manifested, and in which there is but little of waiting upon God, and upon the power of the Holy Ghost! Let us make confession. But as we confess the state of the Church and the feebleness and sinfulness of work for God among us, let us come back to ourselves. Who is there who truly longs to be delivered from the power of the self-life, who truly acknowledges that it is the power of self and the flesh, and who is willing to cast all at the feet of Christ? There is deliverance.
I heard of one who had been an earnest Christian, and who spoke about the “cruel” thought of separation and death. But you do not think that, do you? What are we to think of separation and death? This: death was the path to glory for Christ. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross. The cross was the birthplace of His everlasting glory. Do you love Christ? Do you long to be in Christ, and not like Him? Let death be to you the most desirable thing on earth — death to self, and fellowship with Christ. Separation — do you think it a hard thing to be called to be entirely free from the world, and by that separation to be united to God and His love, by separation to become prepared for living and walking with God every day? Surely one ought to say:y:
“Anything to bring me to separation, to death, for a life of full fellowship with God and Christ.”
Come and cast this self-life and flesh-life at the feet of Jesus. Then trust Him. Do not worry yourselves with trying to understand all about it, but come in the living faith that Christ will come into you with the power of His death and the power of His life; and then the Holy Spirit will bring the whole Christ — Christ crucified and risen and living in glory — into your heart.

Andrew Murray