Harvey Files: Message of Victory

EDITORIAL
MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST DEMANDS HOLY LIVING

“Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?  shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot?  God forbid.  What?  know ye not that he that is joined to an harlot is one body?  for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.  But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.  Flee fornication.  Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body” (1 Cor. 6:15-18).
Surely the greatest incentive to holy living is the knowledge that we are members of Christ.  Not only are we joined to Him as our head; we are in Him; part of Him.  This great fact not only is our incentive; it furnishes our enabling.  How can unclean living proceed from him who has the life of Jesus flowing through him?
It is, therefore, unthinkable that we should for one moment tolerate knowingly one unholy thing.  First, let us consider the vital need of inward purity.  Purity of heart, motives, desires and affections must be our constant goal; and through Him Who is purity itself, must be our enabling and our realization.  It is one thing to battle for goodness and cleanness as an individual, struggling Christian, but when it comes to being joined to Christ it is a tremendous necessity as well as a glorious possibility.  It is a high standard to contemplate.  Many think it impossible, and so it is if we are to attain it by our poor trying.  Like the struggler under the law in Romans seven, we fail utterly.  Romans eight, thank God, shows the glorious provision, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”  We could but cry, “For to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.”  But as we read in Romans 13:2, we are to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  It is therefore no longer we, but Christ living in us.
It is unthinkable that any member of Christ’s body can harbor impurity in thought, word or deed, and call it anything else.  Many people, who today claim the indwelling presence of the Holy Ghost, will still live unclean lives and even sometimes contend that sinning and the possession of the Holy Spirit are not incompatible.  Indeed, there are plenty of instances where the very emphasis on love leads to a mixture which includes something unclean, such as undue familiarity between the sexes, even in worship.  Let us make no mistake.  Where there is unholy behavior, there is no Holy Spirit.  This is exactly what St. Paul is teaching in the Scripture passage quoted at the beginning of this article.
The chapter ends with a reference to another picture, that of our bodies being the temples of the Holy Ghost.  Paul uses the same expression of amazement employed earlier in the chapter.  “What?”  he commences.  He displays incredulity that people could be so blind as to be ignorant of the fact.  “Know ye not, that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  For ye are bought with a price:  therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
In Ephesians, chapter five, we read, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
Can any statement be stronger?  The thought staggers us.  Let us supplement this wonderful reading by also quoting from Hebrews 13:  “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.  Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.”  If His physical body was slain outside the camp and we are now a part of His unseen body, the Church, we can only remain so by being where He is and suffering crucifixion and ostracism with Him.
We could quote many more Scriptures relevant to this great subject.  We call your attention to two more.  In 2 Corinthians 6, we read, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?  and what communion hath light with darkness?  And what concord hath Christ with Belial?  or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?  And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?  for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”
We end this Scripture lesson with another picture contained in St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy, chapter two.  The picture is of Christ’s great building.  “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.  And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ (Berkley’s translation—that names himself by the Lord’s name) depart from iniquity.  But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honour, and some to dishonour.  If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”  Christ’s work in this dispensation must be carried on by His members who are sanctified, set apart and prepared unto every good work for Christ, their Head, to His glory alone.
The above Scriptures and many others afford a sure foundation for the early teaching by John Wesley and others of Perfect Love or Christian Perfection.  Alas, too many exponents and claimants have brought reproach on this wonderful truth by their dogmatic attitude, their glorifying of the crisis only, without looking momentarily as well, for the blood to continue to flow and cleanse.  Also, it cannot be too much emphasized that any righteousness or holiness are His alone.  One moment’s failing to look and trust shows any honest man how utterly helpless and defeated he can be.  It is only that wonderful bond and connection with the Head that matters.  “Alive in Him, my living Head . . . bold I approach the eternal throne.”

THE CROSS AND THE BODY

By Watchman Nee

“Now in Christ Jesus ye . . . are made nigh by the blood of Christ.  For he is our peace who made both (Jew and Gentile) one . . . that he might create in himself of the twain one new man . . . and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross” (See Eph. 2:11-22).
What, we must ask ourselves, is this “one body,” this “one new Man?”  What is this mystery of Christ that Paul has come to see?
In Romans 6:6 he has spoken of “our old man,” by which he means everything that comes to us from “the first man, Adam”; and he sees this “old man” as having been nailed to the cross with Christ.  In Colossians 3:11-12 he speaks of “the new Man” as the sphere where now “there cannot be Greek and Jew . . . but Christ is all and in all.”  For our old man there was only crucifixion with Christ; in the new Man we are found in union with Him, risen and ascended.  Between the one and the other towers the Cross as the only gateway into this fellowship with one another in Jesus Christ.
You ask me, what do I mean when I use the term “the Cross” in this way?  I think it is best summed up in the words the crowd used of its Victim:  “Away with him!”  Crucifixion, humanly speaking, is an end.  The Cross of Christ is intended by God to be, first of all, the end of everything in man that has come under His sentence of death, for there it was that He took our place, and the judgment of God was fulfilled upon Him.
But the Cross has a further value for us, for it is there also that the Christian believer’s self-sufficient and individualistic natural life is broken, as Jacob’s strength and independence of nature were broken at Jabbok.  There comes a day in God’s dealings with each of us when we suffer in our souls that incapacitating wound, and ever afterwards “go halting.”  God never allows this to remain for us a mere theory.  Alas, I must confess that for many years it was no more than theory to me.  I myself had “preached the Cross” in this very sense, yet without knowing anything of it in my own experience—until one day I saw that it had been I, Nee To-sheng, who died there with Christ.  “Away with him!”  they had said, and in saying it they unwittingly echoed God’s verdict upon my old man.  And that sentence upon me was carried out in Him.  This tremendous discovery affected me almost as greatly as did my first discovery of salvation.  I tell you, it left me for seven whole months so humbled as to be quite unable to preach at all, whereas for long, I have to confess, preaching had been my consuming passion.
But if to see this somewhat negative aspect of the Cross can be so drastic an experience, it is not surprising that its positive aspect—the revelation to our hearts of the heavenly Body of Christ—has proved for many to be no less revolutionary.  For it is like suddenly finding yourself in a place which you have hitherto known only by hearsay.  And how different the reality proves!  Reading a guide to London is no substitute for visiting that city.  Nor can a book of recipes take the place of a spell of work in the kitchen.  To know anything experimentally, we must sooner or later find ourselves personally involved in it.
Yes, there are certain fundamental experiences we must have, and this “seeing” of the Body of Christ, the heavenly Man, is one such.  What is it?  It is simply a discovery of values that, as I have said, lie on the resurrection side of the Cross.  There, what has been for us already a way of release from our old selfish “natural life” in Adam becomes the gateway into the new, shared “everlasting life” in Christ.  For unlike other Roman crucifixions, the Cross of Christ is not just an end; it is also a beginning.  In His death and resurrection, our disunion gives way to oneness of life in Him.
God is not satisfied with single, separate Christians.  When we believed on the Lord and partook of Him we became members of His Body.  Oh that God would cause this fact to break upon us!  Do I seek spiritual experiences for myself?  Do I make converts for my denomination?  Or have I caught the wisdom of the one heavenly Man, and realized that God is seeking to bring men into that?  When I do, salvation, deliverance, enduement with the Spirit, yes, everything in Christian experience will be seen from a new viewpoint, everything for me will be transformed.
We shall now seek to develop some aspects of this subject further.  In the New Testament we find the Church variously described, as a spiritual house or temple (“a habitation of God through the Spirit”), as a body or a man (“the Body of Christ,” “one new man”), and as a wife (“a bride adorned for her husband”), and we must keep these analogies in mind in what follows.  In the remainder of this chapter we shall speak of the Church’s foundation, and then, in four subsequent chapters, we shall touch in turn upon her eternal character, her fellowship, her ministries and her present high calling and task.  We shall not, even then, have finished with this matter of the Church, for so great is its significance to God that, when we come to the ministry of the apostle John, we cannot fail to see the large place it takes at the end.
—Reprinted by kind permission of Kingsway Publications Ltd, from their book, What Shall This Man Do?

AN INDICTMENT ON MODERN EVANGELISM

Unconverted Converts by John Flavel

There are always more who profess conversion than are truly converted—Christians of their own making rather than new-born believers.  Such professing Christians are familiar enough with the outward practice of the faith, but they remain ignorant of faith found in the heart.  They have not learned to leave the world and pour out their hearts before the Lord.  In time of trial their religion is found to be entirely external, and like dry leaves in autumn they are blown away.
How is it that these outward Christians are so deceived?  The answer is that they believe their own hearts.  God has warned us that our hearts are deceitful, but many prefer to listen to their own reasonings, rather than His Word.  The time will come when men will see their folly.  Their own hearts will appear as the source of their laziness, their dislike of godliness, their doubt and unbelief.
Many are encouraged to believe they are converted because they have experienced the emotions of spiritual experience.  But they have not known the substance of it in their hearts.  The similarity between themselves and the true Christian causes them to think themselves rich and in need of nothing.

Commendation Without Condemnation by Charles Finney

It is absurd to suppose that a careless, unconvicted sinner can intelligently and thankfully accept the Gospel offer of pardon until he accepts the righteousness of God in his condemnation.  Conversion to Christ is an intelligent change.  Hence the conviction of ill desert must precede the acceptance of mercy; for without this conviction the soul does not understand its need of mercy.  Of course, the offer is rejected.  The Gospel is no glad tidings to the careless, unconvicted sinner.
The spirituality of the law should be unsparingly applied to the conscience until the sinner’s self-righteousness is annihilated, and he stands speechless and self-condemned before a holy God.  In some men this conviction is already ripe, and the preacher may at once present Christ, with the hope of His being accepted; but at ordinary times such cases are exceptional.
The great mass of sinners are careless and unconvicted.  To assume their conviction and preparedness to receive Christ, and hence, to urge sinners immediately to accept Him, is to begin at the wrong end of our work—to render our teaching unintelligible.  And such a course will be found to have been a mistaken one, whatever present appearances and professions may indicate.  The sinner may obtain a hope under such teaching; but, unless the Holy Spirit supplies something which the preacher has failed to do, it will be found to be a false one.  All the essential links of truth must be supplied.

Instant Christianity by A. W. Tozer

Instant Christianity tends to make the faith-act terminal, and so smothers the desire for spiritual advance.  It fails to understand the true nature of the Christian life, which is not static but dynamic and expanding.  It overlooks the fact that a new Christian is a living organism, as certainly as a new baby is, and must have nourishment and exercise to assure normal growth.  It does not consider that the act of faith in Christ sets up a personal relationship between two intelligent moral beings, God and the reconciled man, and no single encounter between God and a creature made in His image could ever be sufficient to establish an intimate friendship between them.
By trying to pack all of salvation into one experience, or two, the advocates of instant Christianity flaunt the law of development which runs through all nature.  They ignore the sanctifying effects of suffering, cross-carrying and practical obedience.  They pass by the need for spiritual training, the necessity of forming right religious habits, and the need to wrestle against the world, the devil and the flesh.
Undue preoccupation with the initial act of believing has created in some a psychology of contentment, or at least of non-expectation.  To many, it has imparted a mood of quiet disappointment with the Christian faith.  God seems too far away, the world is too near and the flesh too powerful to resist.  Others are glad to accept the assurance of automatic blessedness.  It relieves them of the need to watch and fight and pray, and sets them free to enjoy this world while waiting for the next.
Instant Christianity is 20^th century orthodoxy.  I wonder whether the man who wrote Philippians 3:7-16 would recognize it as the faith for which he finally died?

Caricature of Faith by Booth-Tucker

The caricature of faith implied in only-believism also called forth strenuous protest from Mrs. Booth.  The practice of picking out some text, such as 1 John 5:10-14, separating it from its context, and applying it indiscriminately to all descriptions of sinners, she believed to have been the cause of the damnation of thousands of souls.  She pointed out that the direction to “only believe” was applied strictly by the Apostles to convicted sinners, while hardened, impenitent, or careless ones were warned to repent, and flee from the wrath to come.  To divorce repentance from faith was to separate two things which God had indissolubly joined together.  An unrepentant sinner could no more exercise saving faith than he could fly.  And to confound mere intellectual assent to a set of doctrines with conversion was calculated to ensure the shipwreck of countless souls, as surely as to confound the Eddystone Lighthouse with the North Fore Light!

Mock Salvation by Catherine Booth

Any theory which leads men to suppose that they are safe without being actually saved is the most dreadful of all.  Such a theory adds an intellectual opiate to the deceit of the heart, and prevents the truth from troubling the conscience.  Now, the only use of appealing to the understandings of the unregenerate is, that through their understandings you may get at their hearts, but if Satan has “blinded their minds” by some intellectual opiate there is no chance.  The understanding is darkened, the conscience seared and the soul paralyzed.  These are the worst people in the world to preach to; when I had to preach to them, how I groaned many a time for a congregation of heathen!
A man is either saved or not; the fact is independent of his theory, and it is of comparatively little consequence what his theory may be if he be saved.  Hence many savages and Catholics have rejoiced in a consciousness of pardon, while many evangelicals have never known it.  A man is either under the dominion of sin, or else he is delivered from it.  If he is under the dominion of sin, what an awful theory is that which makes him believe he is saved!  Could the devil have invented a more damning theory than that?  And yet, alas!  alas!  he allures millions to destruction through it, who otherwise would take alarm and begin to seek salvation.  He says to all the qualms of conscience and pangs of remorse, “You are all right; you believe this or the other, your faith is orthodox, you are safe.”  Frequently he quotes separated or mutilated texts to back up his lying insinuations, such as, “By faith ye are saved”; “He that believeth shall be saved”; “You are complete in Him,” etc.
This latter phrase has come to express, in numbers of instances, the most utter ruin to which the human soul can be brought.  “Complete in Christ!”  “Complete” without any true repentance, without any offering of the heart, without the slightest change, inward or outward; “complete in Him,” while living without Him, and having no conscious connection with Him whatever; “complete” without losing one evil feature of the godless life, without receiving one grace of any kind, without doing or suffering anything, except perhaps, a whispered “I believe”; “complete” all in a minute, since somebody pointed to a text with which perhaps the poor victim had been familiar all his life!  “Complete in Christ” with a gnawing consciousness at the heart that it is as sinful, as empty, as powerless and as joyless as ever; “complete” as a poor corpse would be “complete” if painted and dressed in the clothes of a living man!  May God save you from any such mock salvation as this.

Self-Adoption by John Fletcher

The old Puritans strongly insisted upon personal holiness, and the first Methodists upon the New Birth; but these doctrines seem to grow out of date.  The Gospel is cast into another mold.  People, it seems, may now be in Christ without being new creatures, or new creatures without casting old things away.  They may be God’s children without God’s image; and born of the Spirit, without the fruits of the Spirit.  If our unregenerate hearers get orthodox ideas about the way of Salvation in their heads, evangelical phrases concerning Jesus’s love in their mouths, and a warm zeal for our party and favorite forms in their hearts; without any more ado we help them to rank themselves among the children of God.  But alas!  this self-adoption into the family of Christ will no more pass in Heaven.

Who is the True Gospel Preacher?  by John Wesley

Not every one who deals in the promises only without ever showing the terrors of the law; that slides over “the wrath of God revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness,” and endeavors to heal those that never were wounded.  These promise-mongers are no Gospel ministers.
Not every one (very nearly allied to the former) who bends all his strength to coax sinners to Christ.  Such soft, tender expressions, as “My dear hearers; My dear lambs,” though repeated a thousand times, do not prove a Gospel minister.
Lastly.  Not every one that preaches justification by faith, he that goes no farther than this, that does not insist upon sanctification also, upon all the fruits of faith, upon universal holiness, does not declare the whole counsel of God, and consequently is not a Gospel minister.
Who then is such?  Who is a Gospel minister, in the full, scriptural sense of the word?  He, and he alone, of whatever denomination, that does declare the whole counsel of God; that does preach the whole Gospel, even justification and sanctification, preparatory to glory. He that does not put asunder what God has joined, but publishes alike “Christ dying for us, and Christ living in us.”  He that constantly applies all this to the hearts of the hearers, being willing to spend and be spent for them; having himself the mind which was in Christ, and steadily walking as Christ also walked; he and he only, can with propriety be termed a Gospel minister.

Puny Efforts—Weakling Christians by E. C. Horn

How vastly different is Paul’s standard of Christian living from the soft, easy-going idea so prevalent today of “receiving Christ as Savior while never submitting to Him as Lord!”  How can we do one without the other?  He is both “Lord and Christ.”  Where today, is the labor, the zeal, the activity, the perseverance which would confirm that we are “born again,” “steadfast, unmoveable . . . always abounding in the work of the Lord?”  Our puny, spasmodic, intermittent efforts—how far short they come of the Divine purpose for our lives!
When we speak so glibly today of “leading souls to Christ” with a “technique” reduced almost to a scientific formula, we need afresh to study the New Testament instances of conversion, and to ponder the words of one of the older hymn-writers who portrays the Lord as saying to His faithful servants:

“I know how hardly souls are wooed and won,
My choicest wreaths are always wet with tears.”

Half Conversions by Thomas Walker

I am tired of the half conversions which are the order of the day in most places, in England as well as India, and am longing to see something like the reality of the 1859 revival.

Half-asleep, Deluded Christians by C. T. Studd

True love wakens a man to reality; sham love soaps him down to Hell, greases his trail, in fact, to Hell.  Very many are half-asleep or deluded and make up fancy doctrines of their own, which practically mean that an unholy man can get to Heaven without being holy.  But remember, Christ did not die to whitewash us.  He died to re-create us, and none but His re-creations enter Heaven.

HOW GOD DEALT WITH MY LOVE FOR GAIN

Sheridan Baker came from an irreligious home in a rural district of America.  A revival of Divine grace swept over his college and surrounding country.  This produced deep and profound reflections upon the young student, and he attended local services in a Methodist Church.  A Divinely wrought experience, with a strong inward witness of the Spirit, resulted and laid the foundation for a long life of service to God.  He entered the itinerant ministry among the Methodists.  Now read on.
After sixteen consecutive years in the itinerancy, and the educational department of our Church work, I was forced by feeble health to retire from the active ranks of the ministry.  During my efficiency I had accumulated a small sum of money, which was increased by several hundred dollars from my father-in-law’s estate.  To use these means so as to support my young and growing family, I entered into the mercantile business.  In this, my industry, frugality and care were rewarded to such a degree that I not only kept my family, but accumulated with astonishing rapidity, as compared with my capital and size of my trade.
This prosperity so increased my attachment to business, and intensified my love for gain that, within the short period of four or five years, I found my spiritual interests greatly imperiled by the love of money.  This led me to call earnestly upon God for protection against this danger, and to more liberal giving to benevolent purposes.  And, though my liberality seemed to myself considerably greater than my brethren’s who had equal and much larger ability, yet the danger remained and the love of gain was fast becoming the dominant passion.
At this stage of my experience I was thrown among a number of persons who enjoyed freedom from the power of this world, and were made perfect in love.  From one of these I bought a copy of Perfect Love, by J. A. Wood.  The testimony of these humble Christians and the reading of this book were used by the Spirit to start me in pursuit of the same gracious state as a desirable religious experience, and as the only remedy for my fears and danger.
Very soon after I commenced to seek for entire sanctification, a few minor tests were presented and disposed of satisfactorily to my conscience, and a temporary relief was obtained.  Among these early tests was the tobacco habit.  This now began to appear inconsistent with a state of holiness.  I therefore abandoned the indulgence with the purpose of never resuming it, unless by a Divine permit, which never has been granted.  I fought the appetite for two or three weeks when, either in sleep or not noticing the fact, it was removed, and has not to this day returned.  This loss of the desire for tobacco took place nearly two months before I had the assurance of inward purity, and gave me great satisfaction in the new-found freedom.
But I was soon convinced that the object of my pursuit, and the gracious work needed, had not been reached.  I was, however, quite encouraged, and with the conviction that the way to the attainment of this grace was nearly cleared, I continued my suit with greater ardor.
I was now ready for severer tests, and questions concerning the appropriation of funds began to arise in my mind and to stir me profoundly.  I had in my safe some $2,000 in Government bonds, and held also a mortgage claim on a neighboring farm for $1,200, besides some smaller savings which I did not need in my business.  These had been carefully laid away as a source of revenue to increase my yearly returns, and a source of supply when infirmity or age might retire me from my work.  It was therefore a severe strain upon my strength of purpose, and my feeble longings for holiness, when these serious financial questions commenced to lie heavily upon my conscience.
The first test on this line which the Spirit gently pressed was whether I was willing, for so great a favor as I was asking, to part with my bonds, to sell them and devote the proceeds to benevolent uses.  After a day or two of worry and anxiety over the matter, and seeing there could be no advancement in my pursuit without facing the issue and making the sacrifice, I resolved to do it if the Lord should ask it and open the way for it.
This victory over self and the ruling passion was attended with more than usual religious joy, and for a day or so I seemed near the prize.  Soon, however, it was suggested that the principle which required the bonds as an offering to God demanded also the mortgage claim, for neither of them was necessary to the successful prosecution of my business.  The thought was almost unbearable, but the Lord graciously aided me to bear the deep probing and virtually make the offering.
I now supposed that nothing more could be asked, and I rejoiced for some time in a good degree of religious freedom, and, as my business was flourishing, I could foresee all these losses replaced in less than twelve months.  Then it was suggested that if these savings were required as a precedent condition to a state of holiness, the funds to replace them would be required as a condition to retain the grace, and thus I was forced to face the obligation of giving all I could make hereafter, and of being contented with my present stock in trade, my business house, and family residence.
This was indeed plucking out the right eye and cutting off the right hand, but the Lord mercifully helped me, and I was enabled to make up my mind to this condition of my worldly affairs.
My religious experience at this stage in the process, though deeper than anything I had known heretofore, was far from being joyful and satisfactory.  I continued to read the Scriptures, and to pray and trust for the witness of the Spirit to the work of inward purity.
One day I opened the Scriptures at Matt. 19:21:  “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”  The Spirit applied the word, and the truth, like keen steel, entered my heart, and after some days of doubting, I was enabled finally to yield, but not without a great deal of debating the matter, and with pains and heartaches which my pen cannot describe.  The struggle was now ended.  I felt that I was no longer possessor of these things, but simply a steward, and the stewardship to last no longer than necessary to make a wise distribution of the funds.
After this complete devotement of property to God, two considerations prevented a speedy appropriation to benevolent uses.  One was the conviction that a careless and indiscriminate giving would be acting the part of a cross child that dashes to the ground and destroys what it is not allowed to keep, and, of course, would be as displeasing to God as no giving.  The other was the conviction that a hasty movement would awaken the suspicion of my friends, and they would have me arrested on a charge of derangement.  Such had been my earnestness in seeking holiness, that my family had noticed a change in my conduct, and some of my patrons in the store had observed something unusual.  Hence the most cautious and quiet procedure was necessary to keep down all suspicion of mental disturbance, and meet my covenant engagements with God.
For some months very few calls for money were made upon me, and these for comparatively small sums, much less than the profits of the business for the same time.  So reticent had I to be, and so slowly did ways open to carry out my purposes, that the property became such a burden, as a trust, that I longed to be clear of it.  In this dilemma I kept looking to the Lord for guidance, when it was suggested that, as ways did not open to distribute this property, possibly the Lord intended me, as I had accumulated most of it, to hold and use it for Him.  Somebody must do this, and would He not more likely appoint the person who made it than any other?
After a careful examination of this impression, I was satisfied that its origin was identical with the suggestions which I had followed, and that this must be heeded as well as they.  I was now enabled, after due consideration, to settle on a financial policy which would meet my engagements with the Lord, and enable me to feel at rest on a matter of finance.  I would use what I had accumulated as wisely as I could, and give away all the proceeds after meeting my family expenses, and hold the principal ready for distribution when Divinely called to make it.  This policy has been followed with scrupulous care ever since, and it has been a pleasure to give my labors gratis to the Church for the last seventeen years, and to distribute yearly all the income from the funds invested, except my necessary expenses in humble living.
This experience in the consecration of money will not be complete without the statement that I have not always been able to please my brethren in the disembursement of these funds.  There are popular enterprises, and worthy ones too, which I do not liberally support, because I would have but little left to give to some more obscure and less popular charities.  I find it just as necessary to discriminate, and follow my honest convictions in the causes supported, as to support any.  I dare not consult the wishes of my brethren, only so far as may be necessary to find the Divine will in the matter of giving.
These statements are a mere summary of the salient points of this part of my experience.  The various frames of mind, the states of the affections and emotions, and the many questions that have come up for settlement in the details have, as far as possible, been passed over.  There is, however, a matter connected with the secret of my rapid accumulation, which does not belong to the experience in the consecration of money, that I will name.  I did not enter this business for the purpose of accumulating riches, but simply to make a living for myself and family; and when I managed it alone, I would lock up every evening of the weekly prayer-meeting, and attend church.  And while the protracted meetings would be in progress, I would close the store during the hours of religious service, and take my place with the worshippers.
I was often tempted to desist from this, as some of my best customers would complain of the disappointment which it caused them.  Especially would I be tried when I learned that some of these, with exhausted patience, had left my house and gone to other stores with their trade.  But almost all of these would, after a few weeks or months, return and bring some of their neighbors with them.  Thus my trade continually increased till I had to secure help; and had these helpers consented to accompany me to church, the store would ever have been closed at the time of religious service.  And to this rigid subordination of business to religion, more than to any business talent which I possess, do I attribute my worldly prosperity.
I must now ask the reader to return with me to the point where, in the irreversible consecration of money and self to God, the old man was nailed to the cross, the self-life crucified, and the struggle ended.
Here my troubles might have ended in perfect peace, had I been at this time with some one to instruct me correctly in the simple way of faith.  But instead of a deep, sweet rest in Christ, I now felt that all my worldly comfort was gone, and my spiritual resources completely exhausted, and I far from being a happy man.
My hungering and thirsting after righteousness now became so intense that I could do nothing but pray for a clean heart.  And in answer to my prayers, I would be consciously blessed, sometimes two and three times a day for nearly two anxious months, yet I could not venture to profess or believe myself every whit whole.  At this juncture, I met at a camp-meeting several persons professing and enjoying perfect love, and immediately sought instruction from them.  I was told that if I was really consecrated to God, with a view of seeking holiness, I might at once, without any further effort or good works upon my part, believe that the Holy Spirit does now fully save me.  I now saw that I had been waiting for a sensible evidence that the work was done, before I could trust God, or believe Him faithful in the fulfillment of His promises.
With this new light I determined I would distrust no longer, but by the help of grace, would believe and “reckon” myself, as ordered, “dead indeed unto sin.”  Here it was suggested that there was danger of practicing a willful self-delusion; but the Spirit helped my infirmities, and I was enabled to see that it was perfectly safe to obey God, and that He, not I, would be responsible for any disastrous results that might follow such obedience.  I now felt very thankful for increasing light upon duty and privilege, and ventured to state to two or three persons in sympathy with my struggles for holiness, and who were solicitous for my success, that I believed myself very near the place where Divine mercy was pledged to give me the victory.
At this juncture I was extremely cautious lest I might profess a measure of grace which I did not possess; yet I noticed that the less ambiguous my statements, and the more positive my confessions, the clearer my light, and the more satisfactory my experience.  This enabled me to declare that if I were not dead to sin, I was certainly dying, and, of course, would soon be dead.  Perhaps it was not over thirty minutes after this till I made the “reckoning” clearly, and stated it positively to others.  Very soon I found myself in a state of adoring wonder at the greatness of salvation, and the simplicity of the way to its possession.  I now could see that Christ was all and in all, and that truly to accept Him was to possess all things, and to confess to too much was an absurdity.
This state of wonder and rapture lasted for several days, and my heart called upon all the angels, all the redeemed, and all beings that had breath, to aid me in praising the Lord for my being and its wonderful possibilities through the provisions of the atonement.  It appeared the most marvelous fact that ever reached my mind, that I should be washed in the blood of the Lamb and made whiter than snow.  I felt such a sense of inward cleanness that I wished all on earth could only see what the Spirit could do for one so worldly, so selfish and so unclean.  An almost irrepressible desire seized me to tell all I met, saint and sinner, at home and abroad, in the families and on the highway, what the Lord had done for me.
This desire, and the accompanying effusions of the Spirit which occurred every few minutes through the day, continued for some years with more or less force.  By and by, I began to turn my attention away from what had been done for me to what I began to see before me, and I perceived that a state of purity and general fulness of the Spirit were small matters in contrast with “all the fulness of God,” and living in the realm of the “exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think.”  Since then I have been a continuous seeker, not for pardon, or purity, or the grace already obtained, but for more and more of the Christ nature.  “Forgetting those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize.”

Over against the treasury
He sits Who gave Himself for me;
He sees the coppers that I give
Who gave His life that I might live.
He sees the silver I withhold
Who left for me His throne of gold,
Who found a manger for His bed,
Who had nowhere to lay His head;
He sees the gold I clasp so tight,
And I am debtor in His sight.
—The Herald

Treasures in Heaven are laid up only as treasures on earth are laid down.

From a Reader of The Message of Victory:

What people need today (I mean Christians) is a deeper spiritual experience.  The greatest need is for a greater love of the Bible and to go on to holiness, reaching forth like St. Paul.  I love the Bible and it is the most important reading for me.
These past two years I’ve had wonderful experiences of the leading of the Holy Spirit into a closer walk with God.  Especially of late Colossians 3:1-3 has been revealed to me in a wonderful way which I’d never realized before.  St. Paul says, “If ye then be risen with Christ.”  Suddenly I realized that if we are risen with Christ, then we must have died to something, and when I read the 3^rd verse, “For ye are dead,” then the answer came.
We die to self and sin, and rise victorious by the power of God; the same power which raised Jesus, raised me, and each morning I bow my head and like James tells us, I submit myself unto God so that He will empower me to live that day and be able to resist the devil.  Glory to His wonderful Name, Satan flees from me.
What a mighty God we have; what a wonderful Savior; and what a gracious and loving Holy Spirit.—Mrs. L. Haygarth.

>EDITORIAL
THE TRAGEDY OF THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE

1. K. Chesterton after having once served on a jury later wrote:  “Our Civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.  When it wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box.  When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists.  But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round.  The same was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”

Although the editor of a comparatively obscure magazine, I feel that the Message of Victory should lift up its voice and join those who are sounding the alarm concerning seven very learned men who have endeavored by mere human learning to bring forth a verdict on the most vital question in Christendom, a decision for which they are by no means qualified to decide upon—namely the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, the Son of God Who came to give His life a ransom for the world.  This all important question can only be discovered and judged by those who have it revealed by Him Who, Jesus said, would guide His disciples into all truth—the Holy Spirit Himself.  The Incarnation can only be truly known by revelation.  Again we repeat that we must cry out with all who know Jesus to be Divine against the awful charge of seven religious teachers, contained in the recently published book, The Myth of God Incarnate.
Unbelief is undoubtedly the worst of sins according to the appraisal of the New Testament.  Jesus Christ Himself, after making that wonderful declaration in John 3:16, continued, “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.  He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God, And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil . . . He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life:  and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:17-19 and 36).
Worldly wisdom has always been the snare to all who have not been open to a Divine revelation.  The coming of God incarnate was a great mystery as far as human reasoning was concerned.  The marvel of the Incarnation can only be grasped by one who is open to the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.  St. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that “the world by wisdom, knew not God.”  Should we wonder then that men who exalt their learning to a place above the revealed truth of the Word of God, would make the mistake by thinking that the mass of people have to have the Gospel story watered down from its position of majesty and wonder to suit the earthly mind of men who are so earth-bound that they stake their all on the fortunes and possibilities of this world?  The composers of the Myth evidently think that if they take out the element of the Divinity of Jesus Christ from the Gospel story, it will become more believable and more palatable.  The fact is that by their so-called wisdom they do not recognize God when He is presented in the person of His “only begotten” Son.  They “know not God” in Christ, His incarnate Son.
St. Paul also says that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”  This undoubtedly means that what appears to this world as the foolishness of God is indeed the true wisdom.  The whole truth is that there is a possibility of knowing all the facts relating to our physical existence while at the same time being completely dark as to Divine truths.  The case of Saul of Tarsus proved this.  Brought up “at the feet of Gamaliel,” he was considered doubtless a very educated man of his day.  He believed that Jesus was an impostor.  He could well have contributed in the bitterest terms to the publishing to the Hebrew nation a work similar to the book we are now considering.  Instead he received what these men need so desperately, a revelation.  He had a meeting with the unseen, but oh, so real, Lord Jesus and he became the greatest exponent of the glorious and saving truth that Jesus is the Son of God.  He declared, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
Why will men, who must know from history that the Christian religion is one of Divine revelation, come down to fleshly arguments and deny that which Christianity is all about!  Without this precious nugget of fact being a reality to us, Christianity becomes one with the comparative religions of the day.  To attempt to eliminate the Incarnation from Christianity is to have a solar system without a sun or an ocean without water.  It is to take from Christianity its very central idea.  It is to forfeit for ourselves and to rob others of the very thing which mankind is blindly groping for in vain.  The God-Man and all He purchased is the answer to our every need.  Without that we are miserable and hopeless.  We used to sing, “The martyrs died believing in Christ, the Son of God.”  Why worship in a church called St. Peter’s or St. Stephen’s and deny the secret of their martyrdom and glory?
Why is the Bible the best-selling book for centuries?  Do men buy and read it merely for educational purposes?  Are they solely interested in Jesus as our example?  Far from it.  The New Testament is the “book of the generation of Jesus Christ.”  Its blessing for humanity is due to the Divinity of Jesus, the Son of God.  If it does not proclaim that to a lost and needy world, what does it do?  Ten million martyrs in the first three centuries gladly sacrificed all they held dear and finally made the supreme sacrifice, trusting solely and thank God, not in vain, in the atonement of Him, Whom John the Baptist proclaimed as “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.”
It seems superfluous to have to prove that  Jesus claimed over and over again to be God incarnate.  We are amazed.  If the New Testament does not teach that, what does it teach?  We all agree that St. John in his Gospel proclaims it and infers it almost constantly.  Bible students declare that the central theme of his Gospel is “Jesus, the Son of God.”
Regardless of what these critics say, the Synoptic Gospels leave to no honest man, any question regarding the matter either.  Noteworthy is Peter’s confession in Matt. 16:16, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus replied, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:  for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”  It is obvious that any who deny that Matthew taught that Jesus claimed Divine Sonship and who deny it themselves are conferring with “flesh and blood” and are not in a relationship to have the truth revealed to their hearts from Heaven.
St. Luke passes on very valuable evidence on this point.  He gives the record of the repentance of the dying thief, who requests from the Man on the middle cross, with his dying breath, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” and receives the marvelous promise, “This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.”  Just previously He had prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”  Here is two-fold evidence for He claims definitely that God is His Father, and He does what none but the Son of God can do, forgives His murderers.  And finally, Mark tells us of the astonishing exclamation of the Roman Centurion when Jesus breathed His last and the veil of the temple was rent and darkness covered the earth, “Truly this man was the Son of God.”
And lastly we would commend anyone with the slightest doubt, to read all the four Gospel accounts of Christ’s trial in the palace of the High Priest.  In each of the three Synoptic Gospels, the record teaches that the sentence of death actually came as a result of Jesus admitting that He was God’s Son.  In other words Jesus died because He said He was the Son of God!!

THE PATHWAY OF REJECTION

By J. Gregory Mantle

One of my intimate ministerial friends had an experience which has suggested the title of this chapter. His congregation persistently refused to accept his message.  He wanted to lead his flock into the green pastures, and beside the still waters, but they were unwilling to be led.  His choir, with their ungodly practices, brought things to a crisis.
The position had become so unbearable that he invited the choir to resign, for he felt like one of old, whenever he attempted to preach, that “Satan stood at his right hand to resist him.”  The choir not only resigned but persuaded the congregation to desist from taking any part in the singing.
The result was that whatever singing was done had to be done by the preacher, the choir and congregation rejoicing in his discomfiture, and refusing to join.  This state of things continued for some time, and quite naturally, my friend was greatly dejected and perplexed at the turn events had taken.  He was at his wits’ end when God spoke to him.  He was sitting one day on a seat in a park when he saw before him on the ground part of a torn newspaper.  That torn paper had a message for him that exactly suited his need.  It was this:
“No man is ever fully accepted until he has, first of all, been utterly rejected.”
He needed nothing more.  He had been utterly rejected, and his recognition of the fact was the beginning of a most fruitful ministry in another sphere which continues to this day, and proves how fully he had been accepted by God though so utterly rejected by man.
It was so with Dr. A. B. Simpson of New York, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
This is how Dr. Simpson himself describes the second of these crises:
“I look back with unutterable gratitude to the lonely and sorrowful night when, mistaken in many things and imperfect in all, and not knowing but that it would be death in the most literal sense before the morning light, my heart’s first full consecration was made, and with unreserved surrender I first could say:

“Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee,
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou, from hence, my all shalt be.

“Never, perhaps, had my heart known quite such a thrill of joy as when the following Sabbath morning I gave out those lines and sang them with all my heart.”
Dr. Simpson had to learn later, when in response to the call of God he resigned his pastorate, what it really meant to be “destitute, despised, forsaken.”  “He surrendered a (then) lucrative salary of $5,000; a position as a leading pastor in the greatest American city; and all claim upon his denomination for assistance in a yet untried work.  He was in a great city with no following, no organization, no financial resources, with a large family dependent upon him, and with his most intimate ministerial friends and former associates predicting failure.”  So completely was he misunderstood, even by those from whom he expected sympathy, that he once said he often looked down upon the paving stones in the streets for the sympathy that was denied him elsewhere.
The rugged path of utter rejection was trodden not only uncomplainingly but with rejoicing.  He knew that though he was brought into the net, and was going through fire and water, it was the divinely appointed way to the wealthy place.  He reached the wealthy place at last; and in a sense, beyond his wildest dreams, he found himself fully accepted by God.
What an illustration of the pathway of rejection!  Scores of illustrations of this great principle might be given, beginning with Christ, the most illustrious.  “He was despised and rejected of men.”

It is the way the Master went;
Should not the servant tread it still?

The story of John Tauler, who, in the fourteenth century was recognized as the greatest preacher of his age, is full of instruction.  It was in 1331 that Tauler passed through the great crisis of his life.  Had he not known what it was to be utterly rejected, and had he not been willing to drink the cup of humiliation and shame to its last bitter dregs, he would never have known what it was to be fully accepted.  The journal of those days is available, having been preserved by one of that select band known as “The Friends of God.”
Tauler had announced that he would preach on the highest degree of perfection attainable in this life.  The chapel of the famous Strasburg Cathedral was crowded long before the time of service, for multitudes hung upon the lips of Dr. John Tauler.  He preached on the necessity of dying utterly to the world, and to our own will, and of being yielded, what he described as “dying-wise,” into the hands of God.
While he discoursed eloquently along these lines, there was one man in the congregation who knew that the preacher had but an imperfect personal knowledge of the truths on which he dwelt, and that John Tauler was far from dead.  This man was Nicholas of Basle, an eminent “Friend of God,” well known in the Bernese Oberland as a saint of God possessed of profound spiritual insight and knowledge.
As he listened he said:  “The Master is a very loving, gentle, good-hearted man, but despite his understanding of the Scriptures, he is ignorant of the deep things of God.”  After hearing Tauler preach six times Nicholas sought an interview with the preacher.
“Master Tauler,” he said, “you must die!”  “Die,” said the popular Strasburg preacher, “what do you mean?”  The next day Nicholas came again and said:  “John Tauler, you must die to live.”  “What do you mean?”  said Tauler.  “Get alone with God,” said Nicholas, “leave your crowded church, your admiring congregation, your hold on this city.  Go aside to your cell, be alone and you will see what I mean.”  His plain speaking at first offended Tauler, and his resentment only proved how accurate was the diagnosis at which Nicholas had arrived.
Tauler was a long time coming to the end of himself, but in Nicholas he had a loving and patient teacher.  The process of “breaking” was slow and painful, but when God is working for Eternity He takes no account of time, nor does He spare His servants any humiliation or suffering if only they may be made vessels broken and empty, “for the Master’s use made meet.”
Tauler felt himself obliged to obey the advice of his friend.  He left his Church, fled from popularity, was accounted crazy by his friends, and, alone with God, fought the greatest of all battles, the battle with that hydra-headed monster, Self.
Assaulted by Satan, despairing of his own heart, overcome with weakness of body, broken-hearted on account of his sins, his wasted time and lost opportunities, he lay in his room weak and stricken down with sorrow.  Then John Tauler died, and he heard a voice speaking to him and saying:  “Trust in God and be at peace, and know that when He was on earth as a man, He made the sick whom He healed in body, sound also in soul.”
Then John Tauler rose from the dead.  When he came to himself, after not knowing how or where he was, he was filled with a new strength and might in all his being, and the things which for a time were dark to him were now bright and clear.  The pathway of dying to his reputation, his strength, his wisdom, his zeal and eloquence, had been a long and painful one.  He had been treading the rugged road of complete self-abnegation for two whole years, while every one who knew him wondered what had become of him, and what was the reason of his long silence.
Tauler sent for Nicholas, who said when he learned of his friend’s experiences:  Now thou art a partaker of the grace of God.  Now thou wilt understand the Scriptures, and be able to show thy fellow Christians the way to Eternal life.  Now one of thy sermons will bring more fruit than a hundred aforetime.
It was announced that in three days he would preach once more.  It was so long since his voice had been heard in the cathedral that a great crowd gathered to hear him.  He climbed the high pulpit that he might be the better seen and heard by the throng of people.  Then he prayed:  “Oh, merciful, eternal God, if it be Thy will, give me so to speak that it may be to the praise and glory of Thy Name, and to the good of this people.”
The people listened in breathless expectation, but instead of a sermon, Tauler began to weep; his sobs became quite audible in the stillness of the Cathedral.  At last the people grew restless and impatient and a man spoke out of the crowd and said:  “Sir, how long are we to stand here?  It is getting late; if you do not mean to preach, let us go home!”
“O my Lord,” entreated the broken-hearted preacher, “if it be Thy Divine will, take this weeping from my eyes, and give me to deliver this sermon to Thy praise and glory.  But if not, I take it as a sign that thou judgest I have not yet been enough put to shame.  Now fulfill, dear Lord, Thy Divine will to me, Thy poor creature.”  But he only wept yet more and more.
Then he said to the amazed congregation:  “Dear children, I am sorry from my heart that I have kept you here so long for I cannot speak a word today for weeping; pray God for me, that He may help me, and then I will make amends to you, if God give me grace, another time, as soon as ever I am able.”
Try and picture that scene!  The silent weeping preacher; the great expectant crowd come together to hear, and going away to scoff, for the people said:  “Now we see that he has become a down-right fool”—Tauler going away from the empty church broken-hearted and humiliated, and creeping back to his friends in the monastery feeling that he had failed so utterly that he would become a laughing stock to the whole city, when the story of his futile attempt to preach was known.
His own brethren forbade him to preach any more, because they said he had disgraced the order with the senseless practices which he had taken up, and which had disordered his brain.
“Be of good cheer, dear Master,” said Nicholas, when he arrived from Basle, “your good Friend has doubtless perceived some specks of pride in you that you have not detected, and therefore it is that you have been put to shame.  Do not despise this cross, but count it as a great blessing and favor from God.”
Nicholas further counseled Tauler to be silent before God for five more days, and then ask permission to give a lecture to the monks.  Permission was given, and Tauler gave them such a lecture as they had never heard in their lives.  They were so deeply stirred by it that they gave him permission to preach in public once more.
So it came to pass that three weeks after his failure he preached again.  His text was “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.”  In a kind of parable, strange and beautiful, he told the congregation of the struggles and conflicts through which he had passed, and of the deep peace into which he had entered.
In the words which he put into the mouth of the Bride we recognize the cry of his own soul:
“Dear Lord and Bridegroom, I here vow and promise Thee that all that You will I also will.  Come sickness, come health, come pleasure or pain, sweet or bitter, cold or heat, whatever You will do I will also.  I desire altogether to come out from my own will, and to yield a whole and willing obedience unto Thee; only let Thy will be accomplished in me.  Thy poor unworthy creature in time and eternity.”
Such was the power of the sermon, that as he spoke the people fell down as if dead, and Tauler, for fear of further consequences, had to bring his sermon to an abrupt conclusion.
He had trodden the pathway of utter rejection by men.  He was now to tread the blessed road of full acceptance by God.  His sermons, though hard to obtain second-hand, are still eagerly read by those who desire God’s best; and all who read them understand more fully the Master’s words:  “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone:  but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.”

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Rev. J. Gregory Mantle is known for his successful labors at the Central Hall, Deptford, and also as a speaker at the Keswick Convention.  He spent the last twelve years of his life in the United States, first as a Baptist pastor and then serving with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, founded by Dr. A. B. Simpson.  Having faithfully preached the Gospel for over fifty years, he passed away in March, 1925, at seventy-two years of age.  This article is taken from his book, Beyond Humiliation.

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The world’s salvation was not wrought out by the three years in which He went about doing good, without the three hours of darkness in which He hung, stripped and nailed, in uttermost exhaustion of spirit and soul and body, till His heart broke.  Little wonder, then, if for us the price of power is weakness.—Lilias Trotter.

DOOMSDAY IMMINENT?

Is Western civilization, as we know it, about to self-destruct?  Is the system due to disintegrate?

University of Michigan Professor George E. Mendenhall, a perceptive archaeological and recognized authority on Middle East history, has some disquieting comparisons which imply an affirmative answer.
Interviewed a few months ago by the Detroit Free Press, he summarized some of the findings which he has set forth in his latest book, The Tenth Generation (John Hopkins University Press).  His conclusion:  modern man has an unfortunate affinity with the distant past.  With cyclic regularity, destruction visits approximately the tenth generation of every civilization, frequently wiping out up to 75 per cent of the human population.
I did some Old Testament calculations and found Mendenhall chillingly accurate.  The Bible has a span of ten generations between Adam and Noah; the destruction brought by the Flood is a familiar story.  The Tower of Babel may have been a “tenth generation” project after the Flood.
From Abraham and the start of the Hebrew race to the end of Israel’s favored status in Egypt was approximately three hundred years, roughly the equivalent of ten generations.  From the conquest of Canaan to the genocide described in the final chapters of Judges is a like time span.  From David to the desolation of the Northern Kingdom is just under three hundred years; the Southern Kingdom experienced one of the few postponements of judgments, thanks to reform-minded kings.
What characterized the “tenth generation” that made it so susceptible to ruin?  Mendenhall mentions eleven factors in his interview with the Detroit Free Press—all with a surprisingly contemporary ring:

1. Rising prosperity
2. The perceptible deterioration of once high technical standards
3. Overpopulation
4. Public breakdown of confidence in the social and political organizations
5. Rejection of the status quo in favor of a counter-culture
6. The absence of goals and purpose
7. Increasing lawlessness and violence
8. Elaborate building projects
9. The proliferation of cultic religions
10. A nostalgic longing for “the good old days”
11. A sense of foreboding and impending doom (which invariably came).

“The rising prosperity, technological complexity and increasing population seem to work together to bring about a crucial shift in the social policy values expressed by the state . . . A point is reached where the acquisition and exercise of power by the state or by individuals become more important than the well-being of members of the society on which the state must rest.  Power becomes an end in itself.  This stage—I call it the ‘deification of power’—is the stage where a disastrous and fatal shift has taken place.”
What, Mendenhall was asked, finally caused the destruction?
“Almost always a combination of the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’—famine, death, war, pestilence . . . Whatever was the particular agent . . . is almost irrelevant.  They’re all inter-related, you see.  The violence comes either from without or within, or both.”
The desolation that follows borders on anarchy.  The dissolution of the social and economic order provokes migrations from the depopulated urban areas to the more secure country-side.  What follows is a dark age.  Then after several more generations, the cycle begins anew.
Is there ever a reprieve from this seemingly inevitable destruction?  the Free Press wanted to know.  Mendenhall cited the nation of Judah before the captivity, when reform-minded kings such as Hezekiah and Jehoshaphat postponed the evil day by calling their countrymen to the old ways of righteousness.
“The prophets of Israel had a formula they kept chiming back to the corrupted leaders,” Mendenhall says.  “‘Give equal justice to all citizens,’ ‘Have mercy on the widows and orphans,’ ‘Show love to the unfortunate ones.’
“But much more important is the fact that from Amos to Jesus the prophetic tradition understood what modern civilization cannot conceive:  that serious problems cannot be solved by the monopoly of force represented in the nation state.  The people themselves must change.”
Not simply the Bible records support Dr. Mendenhall’s ten generation thesis.  Ancient Persia lasted 250 years; Greece from Alexander to the Roman take-over, 300; Rome, 300.  The Renaissance which followed the Dark Ages broke down after 300 years in the Reformation, and the Thirty Years’ War at that time wiped out approximately a third of Europe’s population.
It was about then—in the mid-1600s—that the early English settlers were carving out a new, young empire in  North America.  Revolution two hundred years ago united a part of that territory into a nation of possibly unparalleled wealth, power and technical advancement.
1650, 1750, 1850, 1950.  “In fact,” Mendenhall says, “we may be a little overdue.”
—The Alliance Witness.

THEY KNEW THEIR GOD

By E. F. and L. Harvey

Lessons learned in the School of Christ, as told by:

John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley.

A very able young man once wrote to Mr. Fletcher asking, “Dear Sir, what can I do to be a very useful minister of the Gospel?”  The godly divine replied, “If you will get to feel that you are the littlest man in England, then God can use you.”
Writing to Charles Wesley, Fletcher confided:  “A few days ago, the Lord gave me two or three lessons on the subject of poverty of spirit, but alas!  how have I forgotten them!  I saw, I felt, that I was entirely void of wisdom and virtue.  I was ashamed of myself, and I could say with a degree of feeling, that I cannot describe, ‘I do nothing, have nothing, am nothing; I crawl in the dust’.”

George Fox, Guide of the Quakers.

When all my hopes in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition,” and, when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.

George Mueller, Man of Faith.

The Lord was pleased to lead me to see a higher standard of devotedness than I had seen before.  He led me, in a measure, to see what is my glory in this world, even to be despised, to be poor and mean with Christ . . . I returned to London much better in body.  And so to my soul, the change was so great that it was like a second conversion.

1. N. Groves, Missionary to India and brother-in-law to G. Mueller.

Oh, how consoling it is, under an overwhelming sense of powerless insufficiency in one’s work, to know that God has chosen to put the most precious gift in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of man; so that we may glory in our very weakness and ignorance, and natural insufficiency, knowing that the Lord’s strength is made perfect in this very weakness.  Dear and blessed Lord, make everyone of us willing to be nothing, that thou mayest in all things be glorified.

Madam Guyon, a Truly Evangelical Roman Catholic.

In an introductory chapter of her autobiography, which she was requested to write, Madam Guyon shares a secret with her readers:
“God does not establish His great works except upon ‘the nothing.’  It seems that He destroys in order to build.  He does it so in order that this temple He destines for Himself, built even with much pomp and majesty, but built none the less by the hand of men, should be previously so destroyed that there remains not one stone upon another.  It is these frightful ruins which will be used by the Holy Spirit to construct a temple which will not be built by the hand of men, but by His power alone.
“Oh, if you could understand this mystery—so profound it is!  and conceive the secrets of God’s conducting, revealed to the little ones, but concealed from the great and wise of the earth.
“It is, then, in dying to all things and in truly losing one’s self as regards them, to pass into God, and to subsist only in Him, that one has some intelligence of the true wisdom.
“God chooses for carrying out His works either converted sinners whose past iniquity serves as counterpoise to the exaltation, or else persons in whom He destroys and overthrows that ‘own’ righteousness, and that temple built by the hand of men, so that there remains not a stone that is not destroyed, because all those works are built only upon quicksand, which is the resting on the created, and in these same works, in place of being founded on the living stone, Jesus Christ.  All that He has come to establish, by entering the world, is effected by the overthrow and destruction of the same things He wished to build.  He established His church in a manner that seemed to destroy it.
“Oh, if men knew how opposed is the ‘own’ righteousness to the designs of God, we should have an eternal subject of humiliation and of distrust of what at present constitutes our sole support.”

George Bowen, Missionary to India and Editor of Bombay Guardian.

Let us be the meekest of men, and the weakest—we will then be the usefullest and the strongest of Christians.

Edward Payson, American Congregationalist Divine.

Some time since I took up a little work purporting to be the lives of sundry characters as related by themselves.  Four of these characters agreed in saying that they never were happy until they had ceased striving to be great men.  The remark will strike us when Heaven pleases.  It occurred to me at once that most of my sorrows and sufferings were occasioned by an unwillingness to be the nothing which I am, and by consequent struggles to be something.  I saw if I would but cease struggling to be something, and consent to be anything or nothing, as God pleased, I might be happy.
You will think it strange that I mention this as a new discovery.  In one sense it was not new.  I have known it for years.  But now I see it in a new light.  My heart saw it and consented to it, and I am comparatively happy.  My dear brother, if you will give up all desire to be great and feel heartily willing to be nothing, you will be happy too.

Martin Luther, German Reformer.

It’s the nature of God to make something out of nothing; therefore, when anyone is nothing, God may yet make something of him.

Whom God chooses to make wise, He first makes a fool;
Whom He chooses to make strong, He first renders weak.
He delivers to death the man whom He means to quicken;
He depresses to hell whomsoever He intends to call to Heaven.

Catherine Booth, Mother of the Salvation Army.

When God teaches us that we have nothing to trust in, when He makes us realize our own nothingness and utter helplessness, then we will begin to be of some use—and never till then.  It is God that worketh in us and by us.  The apostle labored all the way through to show and convince everybody that it was God in him, and not of himself at all.

Northcote Deck, Missionary to the Solomon Islands.

Take the Book of Acts of the Apostles.  It begins with great expectations, with closed doors, but an open Heaven and the mighty rushing wind and the power of Pentecost.  Yes, all things in Heaven and on earth must have seemed possible to the early Church.  Yet the Book ends, humanly speaking, in disappointment.  No proud palace welcomed the apostles, no earthly kingdom became theirs.  To Paul, the greatest among them, the closing chapters of the Book bring merely a “hired house,” a limited liberty, an attendant soldier.  His end was in seeming disaster and a chained body.  But in the body there was an unchained spirit, which found exultant outlet from time to time in the so-called “prison Epistles,” which are really the liberty Epistles, that ring with the victor’s shout.  No, Paul was more than conqueror and he only exchanged that prison for a very abundant entrance into glory.

Charles Inwood, Keswick Speaker and Evangelist.

I have had, and still have, the crushing sense of mental and spiritual unfitness.  Do not imagine you will ever feel fit for the work.  Do not imagine you will ever be satisfied with the results of your ministry.  Do not imagine it will ever be easy to meet the demands of the pulpit.  It is these things which make us fall on our knees and groan:  “Who is sufficient for these things?”  And it is only when we feel thus and cry thus that the Spirit shows us “our sufficiency is of God.”  The question is not one of self-sufficiency, but of God-sufficiency; not are we fit, but is He able?

Andrew Bonar, Church of Scotland Minister and Author.

Service for the Master that everybody praises is very dangerous service.  Perhaps, in the day the Master returns, the name of one we never heard of in the Church of Christ may be the highest, because he did most, simply for the Master.

David Hill, Methodist Minister and Missionary to China.

I have not much sympathy with the gathering of statistics to make a fair show on such occasions.  Human nature is the same as of old, and there was one numbering of the people which boded them ill.  Unless the nature be very pure, we are in much danger of glorifying ourselves in this.  It is a strange thing that frequently when public mention is made of, and attention directed to any particular member of our Mission—I refer now to native Christians—we have almost invariably had something to grieve over in that person ere long, as though the devil made special assault on those most prominently before the eyes of the Church and the world, being permitted to do so because there has been too much glory given to man and too little to God; too much of self, too little of Christ.

Thomas Walker, C.M.S. Missionary to India.

It is an untold mercy to escape parade in print.  I believe that offends God very often and mars the permanence of the work.  To work on quietly, and trust God for fruit which shall remain, I feel more and more sure that this is the right way.
We all rejoice to hear of the work in Uganda.  But the history of the Tinnevelly Mission makes me dread anything like making too much of a mission field.  When we begin to praise ourselves, God allows disaster to come and humble us.

Gerhardt Tersteegen, German Mystic and Evangelist.

Strive to live in this world, as much as thy station and vocation permit, as a pilgrim or a stranger, of whom little is known, heard, or spoken and who likewise desires to know and hear nothing but his God alone, and speaks with none so gladly as with his God.  Be afraid, when thou art known and praised; but on the contrary, rejoice, when thou art forgotten and despised; for by this, the road to much danger and distraction is blocked up, and thou gainest so much more time and opportunity to abide in thyself and to walk alone with God.
Lose ourselves in the abyss of His goodness, which has no regard to our utter unworthiness—an unworthiness, which appears like an abyss to me, and which if I did not view it in the light of Divine grace, would make me backward in holding social fellowship with God and His children.  But which in this point of view, seems desirable to me, because I find it so serviceable to my humiliation—a frame of mind, which is indispensably requisite, in order truly to be able to approach unto God as we ought.  The poorer, the more humble and destitute we are, the more unreservedly, freely and purely can we unite ourselves with God and His children, and the more capable are we of the participation of the Divine favor.
“Christ humbled himself” (Phil. 2:8).  We cannot humble ourselves, but we must let ourselves be humbled.  Christ humbles us by His guidance of us, and by His Spirit; and thus He makes us acceptable to God, in and through Him.  This ought to be a great consolation, even for the most miserable; because they need only to approach as such, in order to receive from God every needful grace and virtue.

1. T. Pierson, Minister and Author.

Only when we have got to the end of self have we got to the beginning of God!  Human biographies generally magnify a man’s successes, but when God writes biographies in Scripture, He shows how His saints have learned quite as much from their failures, as in the case of Job.  Praise feeds pride, while rebuke helps to humility, and suffering is usually the precursor of a humble spirit.

THE THREE TEMPTATIONS

This study in the life of Christ by Oswald Chambers is even more relevant today.  Every sanctified Christian is assailed by the same temptations sooner or later.
“Health and happiness is what is wanted today and Jesus Christ is simply exploited.”

1. The Appeal to Man’s Physical Needs and Desires

“If Thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Matt. 4:3).

Jesus Christ came to be the Savior of the world and King of men; no one could ever have such an understanding of the condition of men or of their needs as He had.  Now watch what Satan says—“Put man’s needs first, heal their bodies, give them bread, and they will crown You King.  Your chance is symbolized in Your own particular need, satisfy Your own requirements first, and then the needs of every other man.”  Was Satan right?  Read John 6:15.  After He had fed the five thousand the temptation was repeated, but “Jesus therefore perceiving that they were about to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again into the mountain Himself alone.”  He would not realize His Kingship of men along that line.
What is the attitude of the Church today?  Christ on the throne of God?  No, Man on the throne of God!  The tendency is to reverse the order of the commandments (see Mark 12:29-31).  The temptation which beset our Lord with such fascination and power is the very temptation which is besetting the modern Christian—“Heal bodies, cast out devils, feed the poor, and men will crown You King.”  The temptation is more powerful today than ever it has been in the history of the Church, to put men’s needs first, not God; to spell God in the term “humanity”; to make God an etcetera for blessing humanity.  If you heal men and give them bread, what do they care about the claims of Jesus Christ?  Health and happiness is what is wanted today and Jesus Christ is simply exploited.  We who name the Name of Christ, are we beginning to discern what Satan is after?  He is trying to fatigue out of us what God has put in, viz., the possibility of being of value to God.  Our only safety is to watch our Lord and Savior.  “For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted” (Heb. 2:18).
“What is the cunning thing that is rending the Church today?  Where it is not socialism, it is supernaturalism—‘Ask God for manifestations to prove you are a child of His.’”

2. The Appeal to Man’s Love for the Spectacular

“If Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down . . .” (Matt. 4:6).

Remember that temptation, literally, is to try the strength of the thing held.  Satan did not tempt Jesus to sin, as we think of sin; he knew better.  The one thing Satan aims at is that we put ourselves as master instead of God (see Genesis 3:5); and now he comes to the Son of God and says, “You are the King and the Savior of mankind, why not use Your power?  Use apparatus, startle people out of their wits and then say, ‘Believe in Me.’”  Could Jesus Christ have manifested His mastery over men in that way?  Of course He could, but the Son of God as Son of Man is showing what a normal holy man is like.  At His Baptism our Lord accepted His vocation to bear away the sin of the world, and in this place of absolute loneliness He is being tested by all the powers that are against God; but He went through the temptation without fatigue.
There are plenty of Christians today who are not appealed to on the “bread” line, but the “signs and wonders” line does appeal to them.  What is the cunning thing that is rending the Church today?  Where it is not socialism, it is supernaturalism—“Ask God for manifestations to prove you are a child of His.”  Satan’s one aim is to thwart God’s purpose, and he can easily do it if he succeeds in making us take this line—“Now that I am baptized with the Holy Ghost, there must be marvelous manifestations so that people will be amazed at what God has done for me.”
Jesus said, “When the Holy Ghost is come, He shall glorify me,” not glorify you.  The error of the “signs and wonders” movement is that the eye is fixed not on Jesus, but on our own whiteness, or on the amazing of those around us because of what God has done.  Jesus Christ never went on that line, and the unobtrusive kind of life He lived is exactly the type of life the saints are to live.  There was no “show business” with the saints.  “Thinkest thou that I cannot beseech My Father, and He shall even now send Me more than twelve legions of angels?”  (Matt. 26:53).  Why did Jesus refuse the supernatural intervention?  It was not His Father’s will for Him.  That is the only reason.  “How then should the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be?”  “He was crucified through weakness”—the strongest Being Who ever trod this earth, because He knew what He could do and did not do it.  “He saved others, Himself He cannot save.”
“The great cry today is ‘Be broad; accommodate yourself with evil so diplomatically that the line of demarcation is gone.’”

3. The Appeal to Man’s Respect for Political Power

“All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me” (Matt. 4:9).

This is the most subtle temptation of all—“You are the son of God.  You are here to fulfill all the promises of God, and You know perfectly well that if you compromise judiciously with the powers of evil, You can easily overcome them and will pull the whole world round to Your flag.”  Is Satan right?  He certainly is.
The first sign of the dethronement of God is the apparent absence of the devil and the peaceful propaganda that is spread abroad.  The great cry today is “Be broad; accommodate yourself with evil so diplomatically that the line of demarcation is gone.  Run up the white flag, say to the prince of this world, ‘We have been too puritanical in the past, there has been too clear a division between us, now we will go arm-in-arm.’”  Is that the order?  Never!
“And the devil said unto Him, To Thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them; for it hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give it” (Luke 4:6).  Satan is the prince of this world, and during this dispensation he has power to give authority to those who will yield to him and compromise.  We are here to stand true to God, not to attack men.  No prophet ever lived by his message; immediately he tries to, he must accommodate his message to the standards of the people.  The messenger of God has to stand where Jesus Christ stood, steadfast in obedience to God first.
One of the most curious phases today is that people are expecting the devil to do things.  Let us keep our eyes on God, and remember that behind the devil is God, and that the Son of God has bruised Satan’s head.
There is a wonderful symbolism about the place of the crucifixion; Jesus was crucified at “a place called Golgotha, that is to say, The place of a skull.”  That is where He has always been put to shame, in the thinking part of man, and only when the thinking part of a man is swayed by the Holy Ghost will he find the answer to every one of the temptations that Satan brings.  The temptation to the first Adam was to ignore the supremacy of God over the individual, to make man his own god.  What was it Satan tried to make the last Adam do?  To do God’s will according to His own discernment—“You are the Son of God, assert Your prerogative of Sonship.”
Jesus was led into the wilderness to see whether what He held in His Person, viz. His unique Saviorhood and His unspotted sanctity, would stand the test.  The first Adam did not stand the strain for very long; but the last Adam did not begin to give way under the strain.  Adam was innocent, not holy; that is, he had no wrong disposition in him, yet he was tempted.  Jesus was holy, yet He was tempted.  It was impossible to tempt Jesus with evil.  The first obedience of Jesus was not to the needs of man but to the will of His Father, and at the heart of every one of our Lord’s answers is this—“I came to do God’s work in His way, not in My own way, though I am the Son of God.”
When we are sanctified we get our first introduction into what God calls temptation, viz. the temptation of His Son.  We imagine that when we are sanctified we are delivered from temptation; we are not, we are loosened into it; we are not free enough before to be tempted.  Immediately we are sanctified, we are free, and all these subtleties begin to work.  God does not shield us from any requirements of a full-grown man or woman, because His aim is to bring many “sons to glory”; not emotional, hysterical people, but men and women who can withstand and overcome and manifest not only innocence, but holiness.  We cannot be innocent in the sense that the first Adam was until we are re-made by regeneration; and we cannot be holy in the sense that the last Adam was holy until we are made one with Him; then the same temptations that betook our Lord will betake us when we have become His brethren (Heb. 2:11).
Think of the miserable little “struts” we exhibit—“I must insist on my rights.”  Then take them!  But if you are a saint, you have a glorious opportunity of following the example of Jesus and being strong enough to decline to exercise your rights.  An infallible sign of error spiritually is when all you can say about a man or woman of God is that they are so sweet, so beautiful, so gentle; they have never been true to the Lord.  If the Holy Ghost is indwelling a man or woman, no matter how sweet, how beautiful, how Christ-like they are, the lasting thought you go away with is—What a wonderful Being the Lord Jesus Christ is.

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Every temptation of the devil is full of the most amazing wisdom and the understanding of every problem that ever stretched before men’s view.  Satan’s kingdom is based on wisdom, along the lines he advocates lies success, and men recognize this.  Jesus Christ is not on the line of success but on the spiritual line, the holy, practical line and no other.  If men and women do not continue to go with Jesus, they will begin to teach what undermines the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
—From the book Bringing Sons Unto Glory.

FULL OR EMPTY?

By Lillian Harvey

“I went out full; and the Lord hath brought me home again empty” (Ruth 1:21).
“Is this Naomi?”  the inhabitants of Bethlehem asked as they crowded around the widow accompanied by her daughter-in-law, as they arrived after their journey from Moab after more than ten years of absence.  “Call me not Naomi, call me Mara:  for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.  I went out full; and the Lord hath brought me home again empty.”
Although every human life is a separate history, yet there are salient features which occur again and again in the story of human lives.  We find the same outstanding features in the parable of the Prodigal Son as told by Jesus in the New Testament, and many of us, upon surveying the passing events in our own journey through life, likewise recognize the same pattern.

God and I

There are only two major actors in the drama of life:  I and the Lord.  Friends and relatives might seek to influence our destiny, but ultimately it is only “I” who determines the course of action.  “I went out,” confesses Naomi.  Her husband might have been either for or against such an adventure into forbidden Moab.  Famine was the pressing providence which doubtless unnerved Naomi as she considered with fear the effects famine might have upon the three males in her immediate circle.  Looking back, however, she recognizes just herself and the Lord.  Repentant, she pinned the guilt entirely upon herself—not circumstances nor people.
The contest is always between God’s will and mine.  We allow God His sovereign rights or we take affairs into our own hands and do the initiating.  “Not I, but Christ,” was the way Paul summed it all up.  “Not my will but thine be done,” was the noble response of our Savior to His Father’s purpose.
The prodigal may have irked under his older brother’s self-righteousness or his father’s strict discipline, but when he arrived at the end of his journey of self-will he blamed only one person.  “I will say, I have sinned.”

Went Out and Brought Home Again

Now having looked at the two actors, let us notice what they did.  As a sentence must have a subject, so it too must have a verb denoting action.  We act.  We either go out or allow the Lord to handle our lives so that He does the initiating.  He leads; He guides.  “They that are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”  Even faithful, usually obedient Abraham, had in time of famine gone down into Egypt with dire consequences.
Universal discontent with home has been taken by many as just a sign of adulthood or growing up.  Its narrow circle chafes us.  We long for wider horizons.  Distant pastures look greener. Home—that home of the soul—that center of our being where God was meant to abide and reign, if not fully God-possessed will always be haunted by some elysian dream of bewildering success in order to lure us away.  So we feverishly initiate without consulting God’s Divine purpose and plan, having little faith in His Divine ability to completely fill us with all His Divine fullness.
Elijah found himself in similar circumstances of famine.  Had he gone out to some more favored spot of his own choosing instead of waiting for instructions, he would have missed the providing God at the brook with the ravens, or the widow baking cakes from a never-failing barrel of meal and an ever-full pot of oil.  What stories of God’s great care are left on record by souls who waited upon God; what stories of His rich providing we have missed when we have gone out pressed into action by our fears or ambitions!
Naomi went out.  She went into Moab, the place where idols and false gods were served.  The simple faith of her childhood was exchanged for a more sophisticated, intellectual rationalizing.  It is our loving, faithful, persevering God Who always seeks to bring us back home again.  “God brought me home again empty.”  Through the maze of circumstances and providences which seemed like cruel fate, God had eventually called her back home.
Never, never, must we think of any tragedy in our lives as mere punishment.  The greatest tragedy is to miss the purpose of God in our lives.  God could not be loving and permit us to miss the highest possible fulfillment of His plan for us.  So, He permits bereavement, blasted hopes, blighted plans or it may be that we taste the insipidness of the fame or honor we attained and paid such a price to achieve.  God, our Father, ever seeks to bring us back home again.  Oh, the mercy and love of God Who takes such pains with His children!

Full and Empty

These two adjectives explain the two stages of Naomi’s venture into Moab and her return to Bethlehem.  “I went out full.”  Don’t we always leave home full—full of hope, full of ambition, full of faith in our own prowess?  Even in the religious life, after the new birth, we sense the new currents of a Divine life pulsating through our being and we go out full of high hopes to achieve great things for God.  We do not wait for His guidance.  We feel any type of service for humanity worthwhile.  We go out full.
Naomi’s future was exceedingly bright as she journeyed into Moab with her stalwart husband and their two sons to carry on the line of Elimelech.  The pride and joy of a Jewish maiden lay in her marriage and the hope that she might bring forth a child who should be in the royal line which would produce the Messiah.  The marriage of her two sons to two Moabitish women, although contrary to God’s law, resulted.  In a far country of our own choosing, it is easy to break God’s commandments.  All three males died, leaving Naomi a disconsolate widow, hope gone and empty of future promise.  She could only see promise if she married again and brought forth sons for these two young widows, her daughters-in-law, to marry!
“The Lord brought me home again empty.”  As soon as Naomi pointed her footsteps homeward, things began to happen although doubtless she could not discern the turn of events.  Ruth’s sheer devotion to Naomi’s God and land are unmatched.  Her consecration vows are the subject for sermonizing to this day.
Even Naomi’s apparent bungling, God used to bring about His purposes.  In His wisdom He empties us of our own proud strength.  He must strike us as He did Jacob in our strongest part so that we ever afterwards limp Heaven-ward.  He could not be loving and allow us to miss the grand ends for which He created us—life as an experiment with God as Director and Partner.  How God must feel as He views the low aims, the material rat-race for riches which we can’t take with us and that shut out the accruing of the unsearchable riches of Christ!  He must strike our fondest hopes that we might experience His supernatural giving.
Back home again, things continued to happen.  Ruth happens on the field of her rich kinsman.  Boaz is impressed by the young Moabitish widow and ensures that she does not go back empty to her mother-in-law.  He orders “handfuls of purpose” to be dropped by the harvesters.  Chastened by suffering, mellowed by bereavement, Naomi now counsels her restless daughter-in-law not to act precipitately, “Sit still, my daughter.”  She knows the kinsman will do something.  Her former rash movements, induced by worry and unbelief, are slowed down to harmonize with God’s eternal working.
As Ruth obeys instructions, she finds the rich kinsman not only her husband but her redeemer as well.  Through her union with him she produces a son of the royal line—the generation of Jesus Christ.  We too, in awaiting Divine instructions, can be likewise united to our Maker, our Husband.  As we make His atoning sacrifice an offering for our sin, He too sees His seed.  He prolongs His day and the pleasure of the Lord prospers in His hand (Isa. 53:10).
There is a beautiful summing up of Naomi’s life by the women of her own city:
“Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel.  And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age:  for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him.”
We leave Naomi pictured in the Book of Ruth with the child laid in her bosom and nursing it.  Her emptiness has been filled out of Divine fullness.
However far from home; however empty and disillusioned we have been, we have but to turn our footsteps homeward again and God will in His own way fulfill in us His eternal purposes.  “I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty.”

My Ships Are All Broken

My ships are all broken, the ships I had planned
To bring me great riches from many a land.
They’re battered and broken, the ships I had built,
And now on the shore they lie covered with silt.

My ships are all broken.  I built them with pride,
And launched them with hopes that they’d sail with the tide;
But ere they set out for a faraway shore,
On the rocks they were dashed, and now they’re no more.

My ships are all broken.  God stretched forth His hand,
And now they lie shattered, all covered with sand;
He smote them in judgment in order to show
His love will not let me in folly to go.

My ships are all broken.  And, oh, can I sing!
For had they survived, had not gold been my king?
But now I am free from the chain of my greed;
I trust in the Lord to supply every need.

My ships are all broken.  There’s no need to sigh,
No reason to murmur or moan or to cry;
For, when God sends His storm to sink my fond fleet,
Then let me submit and lie down at His feet.

My ships are all broken.  I look not behind
But upwards to Heaven my treasure to find;
For there in the glory are riches of grace,
And I want from now on to see the King’s face.
—Unknown.

 GIVE A BOOK

The following quotation by Victor Hugo, the renowned French author, clearly displays the potent influence of the ministry of the printed page on mankind:
“The multiplication of readers is the multiplication of loaves.  On the day when Christ created that symbol He caught a glimpse of printing.  His miracle is this marvel.  Here is a book; with it I will feed five thousand souls, a hundred thousand souls, a million souls—all humanity.  In the action of Christ bringing forth the loaves, there is Gutenburg bringing forth books.  One sower heralds the other.”

Wesley on the Value of Reading

John Wesley, founder of Methodism, placed great emphasis on the value of literature as a means of edifying the Church.  As Christ gave the multiplied loaves to the disciples to distribute to the multitude, so Wesley gave literature to his itinerant preachers to spread among the converts.
“See that every society is supplied with books, some of which ought to be in every household,” he said to his itinerants.  And to one itinerant preacher he wrote, “It cannot be that people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading.  A reading people will always be a knowing people.  A people who talk much will know little.  Press this upon them with your might; and you will soon see the fruit of your labors.”

Bishop Hannington Converted Through a Book

What an influence one book can have on the conversion of an individual!  “Do you remember what was the immediate agent in Bishop Hannington’s conversion?  Someone sent him a little book.  Hannington determined to read every word of it, so he began with the preface.  He became impressed with the notion that the book was unscholarly.  ‘I therefore threw the book away, and refused to read it.’
“Some time after he was leaving Exeter for St. Petherwyn and he spied the old book.  He knew his friend would ask him if he had read it.  ‘I suppose I must read through it,’ and so he stuffed it in his portmanteau.  ‘At Petherwyn, I took the book out, and read the first chapter.  I disliked it so much that I determined never to touch it again.  I rather think I flung it across the room.  So back into my portmanteau it went and remained until my visit to Hurst, when I again saw it and thought I might as well read it so as to be able to tell the sender about it.  So once more I took the old thing and read straight on for a chapter or so until at last I came upon that, “Do you feel your sins forgiven?” and by means of this my eyes were opened.  I was in bed at the time of reading.  I  sprang out of bed, and leaped about the room rejoicing and praising God that Jesus died for me.  From that day to this I have lived under the shadow of His Wings on the assurance of faith that I am His and He is mine.’”—Submitted by William Webster from Biblical Illustrator.
Converted through the influence of a book Hannington later went to Africa as a missionary and at the age of thirty-eight years laid down his life as a martyr in Uganda.
—Compiled by David Moore.

Spiritual Literature Challenge

We of the Message of Victory Evangelism are feeling more deeply as the months go by, that the need of truly spiritual literature is very great today.
The terrible inroads made by pornographic books and magazines, the appeal of the occult, the avalanche of books and television plays featuring violence—these, and an ever-increasing landslide of all that would sully and pervert the mind, make the need of godly literature great indeed.  Oh, that we Christians can by prayer and witness persuade people to read!
The M.O.V.E. Press has endeavored to publish literature meeting the needs of the hour.  It is only this great demand that furnishes the answer as to why, under difficulties of many kinds, we continue to issue the Message of Victory—Gospel and Christian editions.
We have had slurs cast upon the production of biographies, sketches, and compilations of quotations of godly men and women of the past.  But we affirm that the Bible is composed of biographies and quotations of men of God, passed on from one generation to another.  Jesus, Peter, Paul and others constantly rehearsed and quoted from the Old Testament.  Where can we find a more striking example than in the eleventh of Hebrews?
Returning to the comparison of the distribution of the loaves to the multitude, we are assured that true believers can fill a vital role in spreading the printed page to hungry men and women.  Why not spiritualize your Christmas giving!—Editor.

EDITORIAL
COVETOUSNESS

Saints are interested more in duties than in rights. Those who claim the most rights are those afflicted with covetousness.
The popular spirit of the age—the demanding of rights—is gripping the church. Priests claim “the right” to marry or to join labor unions. Church leaders claim “the right” to commit their denomination to positions not representing the traditional stance of the church. Local churches claim “the right” to defy proper denominational policies.
All this is sheer covetousness. One man wishes to do what others can do. A leader wants to build up his power in an ecclesiastical organization. A local church tries to secure its own independence from denominational “colonialism.”
These are aggressive devices, self-aggressive. They bear no resemblance to the words of the Man Who said, “I came not to do my own will.” These actions are all based on self-will and self-interest.
It is difficult to preach sincerely, without desire to promote oneself or to humiliate others. In his day Paul lamented (when speaking of Christian workers—alas!), “For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.”
It is difficult to administer one’s work for the best interests of the work itself. A position so easily becomes a platform for self-promotion. And it takes more than average grace to turn down the chief seats and place oneself where he can do his best work.
In public, it is difficult even to testify or to pray without having too eager an ear to listen to oneself. Self-admiration tempts us at every turn. In fact, what we do in public is seldom done for the sake of the deed itself. It is done for ourselves. For this very reason, Jesus practically forbade us from praying on the street corners. He encouraged us to give anonymously—so that we don’t even remember to credit ourselves. We must forget what we do.
Jesus did—it is true—some bold and shocking things in public. But He never did them for Himself; they were done only when they had to be done for the good of others.
Few today in the church—almost none in politics—are studying how to be little in their own eyes so they can become great in the service of God.
If we could only busy ourselves at God’s task, how wholesome and helpful our work would be. We would forget what we have at stake—in salary, in honors, in disappointments, in dangers. We would glory only when Christ was magnified. What recognition or advancement we got out of it—or what persecution—would not concern us at all.
The blessed truth is—we can be delivered from covetousness. We can become Christ-centered by the radical work of the Spirit. But having life by the Spirit and walking in the Spirit are very different. One is God’s work alone, the other is an endless and co-operative endeavor.
To walk in the Spirit is as difficult for Wesleyans as for Presbyterians. The factors are all the same, allowing for very modest differences that these theological systems represent. There’s God, Satan, and me. The outcome of the battle will depend on whom I enter into final alliance with. Self-interest is the great “theological” center of all of Satan’s creed. Self-crucifixion is the great theological center of all that are Christ’s.
Away then with secret councils for self-promotion, compromising positions for popular support, accommodation of the language of truth to win the approval of mortal men.—G. E. Failing, in Wesleyan Advocate.

THE HUMILITY OF JESUS

By Andrew Murray

“I am in the midst of you as he that serveth” (Luke 22:27).

In the Gospel of John we have the inner life of our Lord laid open to us. Jesus speaks frequently of His relation to the Father, of the motives by which He is guided, of His consciousness of the power and spirit in which He acts. Though the word humble does not occur, we shall nowhere in Scripture see so clearly wherein His humility consisted. We have already said that this grace is in truth nothing but that simple consent of the creature to let God be all, in virtue of which it surrenders itself to His working alone. In Jesus we shall see how both as the Son of God in Heaven, and as man upon earth, He took the place of entire subordination, and gave God the honor and the glory which is due to Him. And what He taught so often was made true to Himself: “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” As it is written, “He humbled himself, therefore God highly exalted Him.”
Listen to the words in which our Lord speaks of His relation to the Father, and see how unceasingly He uses the words not, and nothing, of Himself. The not I, in which Paul expresses his relation to Christ, is the very spirit of what Christ says of His relation to the Father.
“The Son can do nothing of himself” (John 5:19).
“I can of my self do nothing; my judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will” (John 5:30).
“I receive not glory from men” (John 5:41).
“I am come not to do mine own will” (John 5:38).
“My teaching is not mine” (John 7:16).
“I am not come of myself” (John 7:28).
“I do nothing of myself” (John 8:28).
“I have not come of myself, but he sent me” (John 8:42).
“I seek not mine own glory” (John 8:50).
“The words that I say, I speak not from myself” (John 14:10).
“The word which ye hear is not mine” (John 14:24).

These words open to us the deepest roots of Christ’s life and work. They tell us how it was that the Almighty God was able to work His mighty redemption work through Him. They show what Christ counted the state of heart which became Him as the Son of the Father. They teach us what the essential nature and life is of that redemption which Christ accomplished and now communicates. It is this: He was nothing, that God might be all. He resigned Himself with His will and His powers entirely for the Father to work in Him. Of His own power, His own will, and His own glory, of His whole mission with all His works and His teaching—of all this He said, It is not I; I am nothing; I have given Myself to the Father to work; I am nothing, the Father is all.
This life of entire self-abnegation, of absolute submission and dependence upon the Father’s will, Christ found to be one of perfect peace and joy. He lost nothing by giving all to God. God honored His trust, and did all for Him, and then exalted Him to His own right hand in glory. And because Christ had thus humbled Himself before God, and God was ever before Him, He found it possible to humble Himself before men too, and to be the servant of all. His humility was simply the surrender of Himself to God, to allow Him to do in Him what He pleased, whatever men around might say of Him, or do to Him.
It is in this state of mind, in this spirit and disposition, that the redemption of Christ has its virtue and efficacy. It is to bring us to this disposition that we are made partakers of Christ. This is the true self-denial to which our Savior calls us, the acknowledgment that self has nothing good in it, except as an empty vessel which God must fill, and that its claim to be or do anything may not for a moment be allowed. It is in this, above and before everything, in which the conformity to Jesus consists, the being and doing nothing of ourselves, that God may be all.
Here we have the root and nature of true humility. It is because this is not understood or sought after, that our humility is so superficial and so feeble. We must learn of Jesus, how He is meek and lowly of heart. He teaches us where true humility takes it rise and finds its strength—in the knowledge that it is God Who worketh all in all, that our place is to yield to Him in perfect resignation and dependence, in full consent to be and to do nothing of ourselves. This is the life Christ came to reveal and to impart—a life to God that came through death to sin and self. If we feel that this life is too high for us and beyond our reach, it must but the more urge us to seek it in Him; it is the indwelling Christ Who will live in us this life, meek and lowly. If we long for this, let us, meantime, above everything else, seek the holy secret of the knowledge of the nature of God, as He every moment works all in all; the secret, of which all nature and every creature, and above all, every child of God, is to be the witness—that it is nothing but a vessel, a channel, through which the living God can manifest the riches of His wisdom, power, and goodness. The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we receive, and how in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.
It was because this humility was not only a temporary sentiment, wakened up and brought into exercise when He thought of God, but the very spirit of His whole life, that Jesus was just as humble in His intercourse with men as with God. He felt Himself the Servant of God for the men whom God made and loved; as a natural consequence, He counted Himself the Servant of men, that through Him God might do His work of love. He never for a moment thought of seeking His honor, or asserting His power to vindicate Himself. His whole spirit was that of a life yielded to God to work in. It is not until Christians study the humility of Jesus as the very essence of His redemption, as the very blessedness of the life of the Son of God, as the only true relation to the Father, and therefore as that which Jesus must give us if we are to have any part with Him, that the terrible lack of actual, heavenly, manifest humility will become a burden and a sorrow, and our ordinary religion be set aside to secure this, the first and the chief of the marks of the Christ within us.
Brother, are you clothed with humility? Ask your daily life. Ask Jesus. Ask your friends. Ask the world. And begin to praise God that there is opened up to you in Jesus a heavenly humility of which you have hardly known, and through which a heavenly blessedness you possibly have never yet tasted can come in to you.

THE FLOOR—THE PLACE OF PURGING

By Margaret Smith

Nobody likes to be down. The contesting boxer wants to stay on his feet to the end of the match. The fellow who is on the ground in the street brawl comes off the worst in kicks and bruises, and he tries to protect his head from the boots of his offended and irate opponent. The ground is the place of defeat and humiliation.
To the Christian, however, the “floor” is the place of blessing. Let us take a closer look at the words of John the Baptist in Matthew 3:12, “He will throughly purge his floor.” Here the floor referred to was the threshing floor, and we are told that it is to be thoroughly purged by the One coming after—the wheat from the chaff. There is something to be learned here, though—that Christ’s purging is always at the lowest level.
The floor—the place of purging! But what keeps us off the floor? Basically, of course our pride. We know what we ought to be and can so often act the part, perhaps hardly conscious that there is any pretence involved. But we find our prayers are not answered because what we have said was not for God’s ears but for the benefit of the other members of the prayer meeting. Had we uttered five words of positive truth, bringing us down to the “floor,” we would have found the place of cleansing and blessing. Christ purges the floor.
We utter aloud, O Lord, we love You,” or “we are so burdened about this certain situation,” etc., when the truth would have been, “My heart is cold towards You and those around me. Please, Lord, melt me in Thy presence, and fill me with Thy love.” God ever meets us at the point of truth.
The dictionary defines “purge” as “to make pure, to carry off whatever is impure or superfluous, to clear from guilt or accusation.” The Pharisee who went up to the Temple to pray probably could truthfully say that he was “not as other men are . . . or even as this publican.” Doubtless he hadn’t committed the same outward sins, yet, he was not justified. Why? He had come to justify himself, whereas the publican had come to be justified. Somehow the Pharisee so fills the picture in his self-esteem that one can hardly see the publican with his face on the “floor” (he “would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven”) in his attitude of confession, keen sense of guilt and humble plea for forgiveness. To admit one’s wrong in the eyes of the world is to invite a reproachful, “holier than thou” reaction. To confess one’s guilt in the presence of Christ is to find mercy and pardon and the lifting up again of one’s head!
We put ourselves on our self-made pedestals too. We think we know what others expect of us. We labor to attain this, and very often feel the precariousness of our position; we wish we didn’t have to work so hard at it. Oh, the blessedness of coming down and just being ourselves! The restfulness and security of the “floor”! Jesus took the place of “no reputation” on this earth, and if we raise ourselves above it, we are out of line with the divine Presence, where alone is cleansing and blessing.
The first part of Ezekiel’s vision of the holy waters (in ch. 47) was that they “issued from under the threshold of the house (temple) eastward.” They eventually became waters to swim in, but they came first from under the threshold. Again we see that God’s blessing begins at the lowest level.
What a transformation is required, and gloriously possible—at the feet of Jesus! Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. The place of lowliness and nothingness is the place of blessing today—and tomorrow. We must stay here, where the purging continues and the river flows.

THE GREAT HINDRANCE TO FAITH

By Alexander Vinet, D. D.

“How can ye believe, who receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour which cometh from God only?” John 5:44.

To be praised, admired, or at least, esteemed, is the secret desire of every human being whom misery does not compel to degrade himself to a lower ambition, and whom a profound degradation has not rendered insensible to the opinion of his fellows. We have, indeed, already within ourselves a judge, who is very indulgent with reference to our qualities and conduct; but this judge does not suffice us. It appears that, irresistibly driven to the sentiment of our nothingness, and dreading to be compelled some day to undeceive ourselves, we feel the necessity of appealing to other men to aid our self love, and of deriving from them an additional life, which we find not in ourselves.
Do not, then, deceive yourselves. Rich or poor, high or low, we all love glory. The craving for the esteem of others follows us as our shadow. It glides with us everywhere. Chased away under one form, it produces itself in another. From retreat to retreat, from corner to corner, it eagerly pursues its timid enemy, humility. Does she think she has escaped from it, she lifts up her eyes and finds it before her. The love of glory can find a place even in the tears and confessions of penitence. It secretly animates the voice of the moralist who thunders against glory; and sometimes, alas, it accompanies into the pulpit the preacher who condemns it.
We cannot deny, that, in a certain degree, the esteem of others ought to be a real want of each individual. In the first place, the privation of this esteem would divest us of a greater part of the advantages attached to the social state. What credit is to a merchant, good reputation is, in the same degree, to every member of society. In the second place, without some mutual good-will, society would not be supportable and good-will is inseparably connected with esteem. Besides, public confidence is the first condition of the good we desire to do.
I acknowledge that, in the absence of Christianity, the love of esteem is one of the best things which can be met with in fallen man. In the absence of an object worthy of our homage, it is an indirect homage to those moral ideas of which society cannot divest itself, and is the best of those social elements which keep men united. But how different from this necessary care of a temporal blessing is that pursuit of glory, from which we see issuing two very clearly marked characteristics.

1. Making the esteem of men the rule of our actions.
2. Seeking in addition to a good reputation, praise, fame, celebrity.

This is what our text condemns; the praise of men as an end of our actions, their approbation preferred to that of God, the glory which comes from men eagerly desired, the glory which comes from God neglected.
The text does not only say, “Ye love to receive glory from one another;” it also adds, “ye seek not the glory which cometh from God alone.” The glory, then, which comes from God only is a thing to be sought after. The following words of Jesus serve as a supplement to those which He uttered on another occasion: “There is no one who hath forsaken house, or brother, or sister, or father, or mother, or children, for my sake and the gospel’s, who shall not in the present time receive a hundred fold” (Mark 10:29-30).
In like manner, there is no one who shall not receive a hundred fold from Him Who required the sacrifice. In the kingdom of God, then, there is no sacrifice without compensation, and the compensations of God are infinite. In our souls there is no want He will not satisfy, but in His own way. We were born for glory. Well, He invites us to seek it. The same invitation is abundantly reproduced in the Gospel. There, glory is represented as an object worthy of our pursuit, as the final recompense of our toils, as the price of the blood of Jesus Christ. The blessings of Heaven are offered to those “who, by persevering in good works, seek honour, glory, and immortality.”
Here, it is no longer man that praises man; it is no longer the wretched flattering the wretched; it is the human soul satisfying itself with true glory in the bosom of the God of glory. It is the Christian, expecting and obtaining from the mouth of the only witness whose regard he seeks, these noble and precious words, “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will advance thee to many things.” This is the glory which ought to be desired, which ought to be the end of life—a glory we cannot dispense with without crime. It is the glory which cometh from God alone.
But as to human glory, Jesus Christ is so far from authorizing the pursuit of it, that He declares it incompatible with Christian faith. “How can ye believe,” says He, “who love to receive glory from one another, and seek not the glory that cometh from God alone.”
Indeed, this love of human glory is one of the principal quicksands of Christian faith. When the soul, oppressed by the consciousness of its sins, and anxious respecting its future destiny, turned in the direction of religion, it meets, on its way, numerous enemies of its salvation. Proud reason is there objecting to the obscurity of the Christian doctrines, and urging it to reject what it cannot comprehend. Indolence dissuades it from the conquest of a kingdom, “which is taken by force, and of which only the violent take possession.” Sensuality makes it afraid of a chaste and austere life. But when all these perfidious counselors have been successively driven away, human glory, more dangerous still, and more certain to be heard, presents itself.
If faith were only an act of the mind, in which the heart had no part, it would doubtless be impossible to see how the desire of human glory could hinder us from believing. But to believe in Jesus Christ is another thing; it is to receive, to choose, to embrace Him, with all those qualities which are ascribed to Him in the Gospel. It is to submit to Him our heart, our will, our life; in a word, it is to become the subject, the servant of this divine Master.
But there is a disposition of soul in which, though the mind is subdued, the heart is yet undecided and rebellious. We desire to believe, and cannot; or rather we believe, and do not believe. We possess the Gospel as a treasure of which we have not the key, with which we can do nothing, and upon which we cannot live. “We have a name to live, but are dead.”
This is the secret of so many half-conversions, of so much defective Christianity. This explains the character of those men, who, according to the remarkable expression of the apostle, “are ever learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth.”
Let us apply this general observation to human glory, and set forth a truth which presents itself in the very commencement of the subject. The moral law is a law of perfection; this every one will admit without difficulty. But in order that the pursuit of glory should not prevent us from keeping this law, it is necessary that the being from whom we expect glory should be perfect in disposition, principle, and action. If he is not, he will not require from us perfection in return for his approbation, or as a pledge of it; for you may be sure he will not put his admiration and praise at a price so high. But more than this, he will with difficulty permit himself to be surpassed. Perfection, nay, the very tendency to perfection, will offend his jealous eyes. He will deny the necessity of this tendency, or rather he will deny the reality of it in your heart; he will misrepresent your intentions; he will call good evil, and candor hypocrisy.
At all times the tendency to perfection has cost those who have frankly avowed it, either repose or fortune, honor, or even life. Whence I conclude that he who desires the glory which comes from the world must descend to the standard of the world, by espousing its maxims, or at least taking care not to profess, I do not say opposite, but only loftier maxims.
When comes the applause of the world? For whom does it prepare crowns? For whom does it raise thrones? And, to present the same question in another form; if one who obeys the perfect law obtains its homage, on what ground does he obtain it? To what part of his being and his life is it addressed? Is it not to that which may be insulated and detached from the fundamental principle of his conduct? Is it not the natural man that they admire in him? Has the supernatural man, the new man, the man of God and of the law, any share in that homage? You know as well as I; you perceive without difficulty, that here the exception confirms the rule, that to secure the glory which comes from men, he must lend himself to their maxims, and proportion himself to their measure; that he must not surpass, that is, humble, those from whom he expects glory. On the other hand, in order to be perfect, he must seek the regard and be ambitious of the approbation of a perfect Being.
How can the soul, which prefers the glory which comes from men to that which comes from God only, believe in Jesus with a real and efficacious faith? He has been compelled to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God; but the world refuses Him that august title. Since the appearance of that divine Prince of humanity, the world has heaped opprobrium upon the adorers of Jesus. An external and formal adherence to Him has been permitted in consideration of circumstances; but earnest and efficient faith has generally been exposed to derision. Is it then, easy for him who values the opinion of men, to confess that divine Savior, still spat upon and scourged, still crucified as in Golgotha? And must he not, in order to lie prostrate at His feet, have bid adieu for ever to the esteem and approbation of that crowd which reject Him?
“He that says he believes in Jesus Christ, ought to live even as Jesus Christ lived.” But how did He live? In a manner so different from received opinions, that it may be said that His religion is quite opposed to that of the world. The world has its religion, wherein all the passions of the flesh are elevated into divinities. Here is pride; but we are to follow the steps of Him Who was meek and lowly in heart: here is sensuality; but we are to conform our spirit to His Who had not where to lay His head. Here is independence; yet we are to resemble Him Who came into the world to serve, not to be served. Here is selfishness: and we are to be clothed with the dispositions of Him Who gave His life for His friends. In a word, we must embrace a life, some of whose virtues please the world, because they are of use to it, but the general character of which wounds and condemns it. How can all this be done by him who cleaves to the approbation of the world?
The God of the Gospel, my brethren, is a jealous God; He is a God Who will suffer no division, either in adoration or obedience. To seek our law anywhere but in Him is to renounce our Lawgiver; to seek glory anywhere else is to renounce our Judge. And surely He must hold Himself honored by the rivals we give Him! Worms of the earth, creatures of a day, poor sinners, equaled in our esteem, mingled in our homage with the eternal Jehovah, King of Immensity, Sovereign of hearts, adorable Source of all holiness. The fickle judgment of a feeble intelligence preferred to the infallible judgment of the God of truth! There is not even equality here; the creature is not equalized to the Creator; it is placed above Him. From the very moment that the comparison is conceived, the outrage is consummated, the Creator is degraded below the creature; because in such an approximation, to hesitate is already to choose.
We descend exceedingly low, to the very dust, to solicit praise. It is to the false tongue of a neighbor, to the smiling flattery of a wit, to the condescension of some earthly grandee, to the fear of ridicule, to the false customs of society, to some transitory fashion, to the pleasure of making a little stir in the circle of our acquaintances, that we wantonly abandon the dignity of the government of God, and the honor of His Name. Behold the glory of man which we prefer to the glory of God!
There is only one kind of approbation which can be sought without danger; in Heaven, that of God, on earth, that of the saints. And we must not seek even the latter, except as a manifestation of the divine approbation. In general the reproofs of the just are of more value than their praises. Let us not forget those beautiful words of David: “Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a favour: let him reprove me, it shall be to me an excellent balm” (Psa. 141:5). He has not spoken thus of the praises of the righteous.
Even on earth, the triumphs of self-love are vain and miserable. They do not fill the heart. They can only deepen more and more the immense and devouring void; the first effect of a triumph is to produce the desire for another. Changes of opinion are excessive and cruel.
I repeat it, then, that, if to be conformed to truth it were only necessary to know it, you might rely upon yourselves for the success of this discourse. But experience has proved to you the contrary. There are a thousand truths that have subdued your intellect, without controlling your life. Know then, that this work is not yours, and that you will never save yourselves. Ah! you feel it, perhaps. To renounce the esteem of the world, to cease making it an end and a rule, and to seek only the approbation of God, is a miracle which belongs only to God to work in you, and which it is your privilege to ask of Him.
May you, then, may we all, ask it of Him, with sincerity, earnestness and perseverance. May we see forming in our hearts a holy tranquility, with reference to the judgments of men. Freed from the heavy chains of opinion, may we feel ourselves free to believe, to love, to obey, till the day comes when, delivered for ever from that importunate vision of human glory, we shall rejoice in the rays of a true glory, in the bosom of our God and of His Christ.
PITIFULLY SMALL
I was exceedingly ambitious as a boy to have a name that would rung around the world, that would set me on a pinnacle with everybody staring at me and acclaiming me, but when God sanctified me I felt that the angels must look down upon the honors that men bestow upon each other about as we look down upon the honor that the ants in the ant-hill may bestow upon some distinguished ant leader. It all looked so pitifully small to me and it does to this hour.—Commissioner S. L. Brengle.

An ambition for the honor of reaping the greatest results for Christ may be quite another thing from the ambition to be most self-sacrificing, most humbly devoted to, and most ardent in love for Him. The former may be of the earth earthy, centering in and reverting to one’s self the latter cannot be.—David Hill.

Then learn to scorn the praise of men,
And learn to lose with God;
For Jesus won the world through shame,
And beckons thee His road.
God’s glory is a wondrous thing,
Most strange in all its ways,
And, of all things on earth, least like
What men agree to praise.
As He can endless glory weave
From what men reckon shame,
In His own world He is content
To play a losing game.
—F. W. Faber.
GEORGE HENRY LANG
God’s Obedient Servant

“The only authentic information concerning my family in earlier times,” wrote G H. Lang in an account of his ancestry, “is that its original head was a tenant of a particularly attractive property on a large and well-ordered estate and was especially favored by the noble owner. But, being discovered in an alliance with an implacable enemy of his landlord—in the very act—he was summarily ejected with his wife who, in truth, had led him open-eyed into such folly. He was thus reduced to the level of a common field laborer. And the ill-effects of his ingratitude and misconduct have dogged the footsteps of each and all of his descendants unto this day. Their names were, of course, Adam and Eve.”
The author of such a description of the fall of the human race had more than an ordinary understanding of the Word of God. Born into an Exclusive Brethren family, from infancy he was reared in an atmosphere where the Bible was studied and honored with the utmost diligence and reverence.
When we add to that, the influence of such a true saint of God, as Robert Chapman of Barnstable, Devon, who led George’s grandfather to the Savior, it is evident that the Master Potter was shaping this vessel for no ordinary use. Nor is it surprising that, with such a scriptural concept of the depravity and lostness of humanity, George Lang should early possess a deep hunger for full salvation and also should become a most coherent exponent of the sanctified as well as of the converted life.
George Henry Lang was born in November, 1874, at Greenwich, then a refined suburban district of south-east London. His mother died eight days after his birth. Fortunately for him and his sister, his father married again in 1876. And still more fortunate was the choice he made of a stepmother for his two small children. Lang wrote of her:
“Though I owe not my natural life to my stepmother, I owe to her, under God, everything else that a mother can give and also my spiritual life.”
Mr. Lang later expressed his opinion that Christian parents should instruct their children, not only in the truth of the redemption and pardon received from Christ as a personal Redeemer, but also that the Holy Spirit is Sanctifier and Indweller. He believed that, had he known these further verities, his life, even as a child, would have glorified the Savior more.
His early education involved attendance for several years at a preparatory school for boys in Sidcup. Later he enrolled as a student in one opened by a Congregational minister, an able instructor to whom he owed much. On Sundays, he walked a total of fifteen miles to attend services.
George commenced work as an office boy in a builder’s firm and, successively, became a junior clerk in several insurance companies. By the time he was eighteen, he was in charge of the claims department of a large insurance company in Bristol. This necessitated his leaving home, but God directed his steps, and he found lodgings with a Christian family in that city.
The spiritual conflicts of a Christian in the business world can well be imagined. One day, the manager, while dictating some letters, made a statement which George knew to be untrue. What a struggle went on within his heart! He was reluctant to say, “It is a lie, Sir.” But the Holy Spirit, which was gaining increasing control in his youthful breast, gave both the courage and wisdom to face the issue, and the young man remarked, “I think, Sir, it would hardly do to say that. The case does not really stand so.”
The manager rapped his desk with his knuckles for a few moments, then altered the wording of the letter. The young clerk had won another victory in his own spiritual life. The shrewd business man knew that a clerk who would not lie for him would not lie to him and from that day he was fully trusted.
About this time, the great crisis of his Christian life occurred. However, preceding this, he had made a decision which doubtless prepared the way. He had long cherished a secret and ardent attachment to a young woman, a Christian in the same circle of friends. He had not consciously given her a hint of his regard but, at this time, God showed him that, from his heart, he must relinquish this affection. It was a most poignant experience but, through prayer and self-discipline, he was enabled to obey the divine command. Later it became evident that she would not have been a suitable companion in the life to which God was leading him and for which He was painstakingly preparing him.
From his own words, we understand the great struggle and victory, which marked the beginning of the overcoming life, which only those who discover the fuller possibilities of Calvary can hope to live.
“A vicious habit learned at school had continued to master me for ten or eleven years. I was a slave, and cruel was the slave-master. How desperately I struggled, how dismally I failed. How bitterly I mourned, how sincerely I confessed, how sweetly was I forgiven. I knew the unfailing grace of God in fulfilling 1 John 1:9, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.’
But pardon so freely accorded did but make me the more ashamed of my sin. The way of pardon I knew; the way of victory I knew not. I had been well instructed and well assured as to justification; the means of sanctification I had not been shown. I could tell the lost how to be saved, but could not tell the saved how to be holy. Calvary was a precious reality; of Pentecost I had no experience. Before God I was in Christ by faith; now Christ was to enter me by His Spirit. The hour of deliverance struck.
“Kneeling at my bedside in an agony of conflict, fighting a desperate but losing battle, suddenly, with overwhelming authority the Voice spoke the words, ‘I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing’ (Rom. 7:18). Instantly the whole situation was illuminated. The truth of the assertion had been burned into my soul by years of dismal failure. In the intensity of the moment, I exclaimed, ‘Then, Lord, victory over sin will never come out of me, for that is a very good thing, and there is no good thing in me, and You can’t get blood out of a stone. Now, Lord Jesus, I will see what Thou wilt do for me.’
“At that instant I was free, free forever. One moment, I was the slave; the next moment, the master. One moment, I was a weakly infant in the grip of a giant; the next moment, I was Samson rending the lion as a kid. Long I had labored in vain to draw water out of a dry well. Now I drank the water of life and knew that word in power, ‘The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death’ (Rom. 8:2).”
Two other important factors entered into Mr. Lang’s life about this time. One was the vital conception he obtained in regard to the importance and method of consistent, honest, impartial study of the Bible. He became convinced that “all scripture is given by inspiration.” So, time and again, he read the entire Word of God from cover to cover. This strengthened that which was Bible-backed both in his beliefs and living.
The other significant event of this period was the meeting of his future partner. His landlady had invited a few Christian friends to the home where he lodged. Among them was Florence Mary Brealey, whose father and grandfather were godly men and had engaged in considerable evangelistic work in Devon, where they lived. Her sister, Ada, became a devoted missionary in India.
Some three years before his marriage, Mr. Lang had accepted an appointment as Pastor of Unity Chapel in Bristol. He had given up his secular employment and, after a year of service at the Chapel, requested the cessation of a regular allowance. The way was now clear for a life of faith.
After eight years of ministry at Unity, Mr. Lang was convinced that his divine Master was asking him to go abroad, so in March, 1909, he set forth. It was while ministering abroad that Mr. Lang perceived how unschooled in the lessons of overcoming Satanic forces were many of the missionaries whom he met. They had never been instructed as to how to gain the advantage over the Adversary’s methods. The experienced warrior says:
“For myself, in England, on race courses, in slums, in Gospel work in a priest-ridden village, and, indeed, and alas, in the church of God also, I had been given preliminary experience of Satan’s kingdom, its atmosphere, dangers and strength. I had been in active and varied labors for eighteen years before the Lord sent me to India in my thirty-sixth year. But for this I could easily have collapsed under the moral and spiritual assaults not to be avoided on such Devil-ridden territory.”
One incident illustrates his ministry in India:
“There came to me at Coonoor an earnest young woman, a teacher in a school. She bemoaned that for a long while she had found herself plagued with jealousy of her fellow-workers. If the principal but spoke kindly to or looked kindly at another of the staff, she felt wickedly jealous of her. So obsessed was she, and so ruined was her inward life, that she felt she must return to her home in America, unless deliverance could be gained.
“Now it is important to make sure that such a disease in the moral realm is not a symptom of disease in some physical organ. This can be the case. But in this friend there was no reason to think that this was a factor. She had never been so troubled in earlier years, and her general health was good.
“I told her that the Bible gave an explanation of her case, but that it was sorrowful and humiliating. James 3:14-15 says that where bitter jealousy is found, it is earthly (not from Heaven); but soulical (not of the new spiritual nature); demoniacal and that, in some way, no doubt unrecognized by her, she must have given access to a demon to infect her with this evil feeling.
“I then pressed upon her that, if she would humbly accept this as God’s explanation of the matter, then she could claim such a promise as 1 John 3:8, ‘For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.’ With bitter tears, she bowed before God, claimed the promised deliverance and was set free immediately and permanently. In the text cited above, the word ‘destroy’ means to loosen, disentangle, and so set free, as a bird from a snare or a captive free from the cords of his captor.”
After his return to England, calls for evangelistic effort reached him from many countries—Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Germany, Romania, as well as others. Some of these lands he visited several times, remaining for considerable periods of time. Always he trusted his heavenly Father for his own expenses and the sustenance of his family. Towards the close of these “journeyings oft” he wrote:
“Long before I was called out of secular business and separated unto the Gospel, I had been taught by the love of God to find happiness in keeping my personal expenditures low and using for others the whole surplus. For thirty years, I have not issued circular letters as to journeys or other undertakings. And I have thus proved the thorough soundness of George Muller’s resolve that he would not knock at man’s door until he should find his Heavenly Father’s door locked against him. That was a valid and prevailing argument by Catherine of Siena, that she was prepared to be the second to whom God should fail to keep His word, but she was not willing to be the first.”
In one of his books, Mr. Lang illustrates the working of the above principle by citing an instance in a certain mission field, where several missionaries, sent out by home boards and supported by the same, had labored for years with little success. However, in the course of time, one of God’s servants commenced work in those same areas in New Testament simplicity both as to method and finance. With a definite assurance that he had been called of God, he chose his Heavenly Father as the source of his supplies. It is not surprising that the Lord of the harvest blessed this course by saving precious souls.
With the outbreak of World War 2, his activities in foreign lands were curtailed. But the need of evangelism in England called for his consecrated energies. At this period, he also devoted much time to writing. The books that issued from his pen were intended especially to encourage God’s children to advance in the spiritual life. Pictures and Parables is one of his outstanding works. He also helped in translations from the German.
To the end of his life, Mr. Lang’s conception and personal application of the truth of the complete Lordship of Christ was most evident. Personal interests, family claims, the opinions of strong men about him—all were eclipsed by the fact of his love for and obedience to the loving commands of his divine Head.
This obedient servant witnessed with regret the humanly planned efforts that have become so evident in our modern evangelistic methods. He constantly exhorted one and all to let God do the planning and the ordering, as for example in the following:
“We need to get back to the original apostolic plan of waiting for the Lord to take the initiative in all His work, special as well as ordinary. If He sends Paul to Corinth, it will be found that He has much people there. If He forbids Paul to go to Ephesus it is because the time for work there has not yet come. His control when we accept it, is real and perfect.”
Regarding soul-winning, this “single-eyed” man of God decried, like others today, the methods of organized evangelism. We read in his booklet, God at Work on His Own Lines:
“The most common plan is to arrange a ‘mission’; to call in some stirring evangelist, perhaps with a tent; to advertise around, and in general to stir things up and get a move on. My experience on that line has been discouraging. I had co-operated with one mighty effort, when money had been spent like water for months; thousands had filled a vast hall, and hundreds went into the inquiry room. At the close, thirty-four names were sent to me of persons who had given our hall as their spiritual center. Only one or two had ever been near us. For six months I visited them all diligently and I fear that only four had been touched by the Spirit of God.”
In contrast he tells about an experience of his own in a small English village, while residing there for some little time when laid aside as far as world-wide travels were concerned. A farmer and he were convinced that intercessory prayer was the key to the situation. They waited until the Lord sent His own human instrument along—a Scottish evangelist. There was no spectacular rushing forward on the part of inquirers, but on the last night of the effort one soul was saved. The evangelist went on his way, but the blessed but quiet work of conviction and conversion proceeded from this point.
Numbers of the converts were young people who were happy to unite with the more mature Christians and a blessed fellowship was established between old and young. It was not necessary to provide special young people’s meetings. Too often these have the baneful result of cleavage within the church which is weakening. No precious hours were wasted singing choruses. The weekly meeting for prayer and Bible study was now attended by fifteen to twenty, mostly youths and maidens. It was but a year or two before God had raised up five preachers in that village church. Mr. Lang further comments:
“In the home, in business, the church and the Gospel it is dreadfully usual for Christians to make their own arrangements on their own initiative and by their own wisdom; and then they ask the Lord to add His blessing. But the Lord of Glory is not our lackey to further our plan, but our Lord to command us for the furtherance of His plan.
“For this we must wait His initiative, His direction, His prior activity. ‘When thou hearest the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees . . . then thou shalt bestir thyself; for then shall the Lord go out before thee! (2 Sam. 5:24). We may bestir ourselves vigorously before God has gone forth, but defeat will result.
“It is my especial wish and prayer that this account of the Lord’s gracious ways with myself may encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ to give to God, their Father, His full, rightful place, as the sole Orderer of life, to His praise and their own good. And in particular, I long that my fellow-preachers of the Word should commit their service to His direct ordering: and abandon the injurious practice of mortgaging the future by looking ahead unless, of course, by unmistakable divine guidance.
“How can one be a messenger unless he waits every time for both the message and the time and the person to whom to deliver it? The general habit of taking time and gifts out of the actual control of the Head of the Church has plainly forfeited His unction to a lamentable degree.”
This obedient servant of God lived to be eighty-four years of age. In the decline of his last months, shortly before his death, Mr. Lang wrote to a friend, “Remember me still, a frail old warrior, ready to fold his cloak around and go to sleep.” He passed from time to eternity to further serve His Lord on the 20^th October, 1958.
(We acknowledge permission from Paternoster Press for use of material from An Ordered Life by G. H. Lang).
It’s the life you live after death that counts. If you haven’t died, the life you are now living isn’t counting.—Mr. Homer, Bible Baptist Missionary, Taiwan.
God has two thrones—one in the highest heavens, the other in the lowliest hearts.

“Oh, what a heart was mine!
A den of raging beasts!
Without, a mansion fine;
Within, satanic feasts!
There foulest thoughts did freely rove,
There furious passions fiercely strove.

“Oh, what a heart was Thine!
A region undefiled;
Heaven’s light undimmed did shine,
The verdant landscape smiled;
There thoughts serene held converse sweet,
There luscious fruit God’s eye did greet.

“And Thou hast come to me
Within my heart to dwell,
My spirit’s life to be!
Oh, who the bliss can tell?
Now Thou Thy life dost shed abroad,
And Thou of all my heart art Lord.

“The passions rage no more,
And Satan flees apace;
Now Love’s pure flood doth pour
To beautify the place;
And oh, Thy peace, Thy joy are mine,
Since now my heart is wholly Thine.

“Though evils lurk around,
And I must watch and pray,
Yet Thou within art found,
And Thou dost win the day;
When e’en the flesh doth strive again
How swift the victory Thou dost gain!

“How radiant the room
When Thou art on the throne;
The garden needs must bloom
Where Thou Thy face hast shown;
Thou, Sun of righteousness, dost shine,
And flood the heart with health divine.

“The chalice of Thy joy
I now have sipped and cry—
All other pleasures cloy,
Let sin’s foul cisterns dry;
That Thou within my heart dost dwell
Yields streams from Heaven’s exhaustless well.”
—G. H. Lang.
There is something in every man that resents the interference of God. Before a man can be saved, the central citadel of his being has to be stormed and taken possession of by the Holy Spirit.
* * * * * * * * *
The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention, but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.—A. W. Tozer.

THEY LEARNED THE SECRET

“That no flesh should glory in his presence” (1 Cor. 1:29).

Many of God’s dear children, after a series of frustrations, failures and deep heart-searchings, have learned that “the greater the spiritual activity within a man the less is he able to ascribe this activity to himself.” The mysteries of the kingdom are revealed to babes, and divine power is given to those who empty themselves of all that is of self. Different expressions are used in order to convey this humbling process of “becoming nothing” that He might be exalted. How careful were some of the ablest of Christians to return all the glory to their Maker.

Henry Venn relates how in his associations with Mr. Fletcher, he noted how unfeigned was his humility and how spontaneous his hatred of personal glorification. He says:
“When I thanked him for two sermons he had one day preached to my people at Huddersfield, he answered as no man ever did to me. With eyes and hands uplifted, he exclaimed, ‘Pardon, pardon, pardon, O my God.’ The words went to my very soul. Great grace was upon this blessed servant of Christ.”
Robert Murray McCheyne, the young man in whose church God was so graciously pleased to pour out of His Spirit, realized the truth of man’s innate pride and God’s glory.
“I sometimes think that a great blessing may come to my people in my absence. Often God does not bless us when we are in the midst of our labors, but we shall say, ‘My hand and my eloquence have done it.’ He removes us into silence, and then pours down a blessing so that there is no room to receive it; so that all that see it cry out, ‘It is the Lord.’
“It is our truest happiness to live entirely for the glory of Christ—to separate between ‘I’ and ‘the glory of Christ.’ We are always saying, ‘What have I done? Was it my preaching, my sermon, my influence? Whereas we should be asking, What hath God wrought?’”
Andrew Bonar, the biographer of McCheyne as well as being a writer and pastor, observed that he could tell when a Christian was growing. In proportion to his growth in grace he would elevate his Master, talk less of what he himself was doing and become smaller and smaller in his own esteem, until, like the morning star, he fades away before the rising sun. Of himself, he said,
“My ambition now is very feeble compared with other days. To win souls and to know God more, and then to be in the kingdom, is all my desire.”
Hudson Taylor realized the necessity of ascribing all honor to God. Once when a minister introduced him to a crowded audience, he referred to him “as our illustrious guest.” Mr. Taylor stood quietly for a minute, his face illuminated and then replied, “Dear friends, I am the little servant of an illustrious Master.”
Alexander MacLaren when praised as a guide and teacher whose name called forth veneration, replied in a pained voice: “Oh, stop! I cannot listen to words like these. When I woke this morning and thought, I said to myself, ‘A sinner saved by grace—that is all.’”
Barclay Buxton asked his wife to keep from him any praise that she might hear concerning him or his addresses “because pride is such a danger to me.”
Billy Bray realized that humility was his safeguard through life. An aged person remembered hearing him say on one occasion,
“Soon after I was converted the devil said to me, ‘Billy Bray, you’ll be a great man;’ but I sunk into nothing, and in that way slipped through the devil’s hands.”

1. L. Moodycould boast of little formal education, and grammatical errors abounded in his letters. His physical appearance was not attractive. His voice was high pitched and his tones nasal. A reporter, who was covering his campaigns, endeavored to discover the secret of his power, observed, “I can see nothing whatever in Moody to account for his marvelous work.”

Moody chuckled, “Of course not. The work is God’s, not mine.”
Francis Ridley Havergal renounced all idea that her poetry or hymns were the result of her own gifts:
“My experience is that it is nearly always just in proportion to my sense of personal insufficiency in writing anything, that God sends His blessing and power with it; so I don’t wonder that your papers are so sweet, and helpful! I think He must give us that total dependence on Him for every word, which can only come by feeling one’s own helplessness and incapacity, before He can very much use us. And so I think this very sense of not having gifts is the best and most useful gift of them all. It is so much sweeter to have to look up to Him for every word one writes. I often smile when people call me ‘gifted,’ and think how little they know the real state of the case, which is that I not only feel that I can’t, but really can’t, write a single verse unless I go to Him for it and get it from Him. You know I only desire His glory and not F. R. H.’s credit; and I greatly shrink from anything of mine being used only as a sort of compliment to me!”
Mrs. Elizabeth Swift Brengle wrote to her husband, Colonel Brengle:
“I think if all this hoisting up of our great men in front of the Cross could be stopped, it would be one great step toward regaining some of our lost power. Continue to insist on this in your case, and I believe God will greatly reward you . . . I am sure it grieves God. You know I love to hear you lauded, and I can spend many happy hours at it. But when I go to meetings I want no one mentioned but the One Who can save people from sin.”

1. D. Drysdale,a man greatly used of God in our own day, remarked,

“How often during those waiting years the prayer would rise to God, ‘Lord, never permit me to enter the ministry until non-apparent success will not cause discouragement; or apparent success cause inflation and pride.”
—Compiled by Lillian G. Harvey.
SOMEBODY’S STEALING GOD’S GLORY

Eric S. Fife wonders why we talk so little about the most important factor in the work of the Kingdom.

When the walls of Jericho fell, God’s people exclaimed in praise, “What God has done!” But today, when something notable happens in the work of the Church, people say, “How did you do it?”
What fascinates us, what occupies our time and energies, is methods. The principle of our complete dependence upon God to do His work is lost in the shuffle.
The British, especially in the conduct of world missions, have a reputation for stressing principle while being rather vague about the method. Americans, on the other hand, are noted for their innovative and aggressive attention to method.
When one aspect is emphasized at the expense of the other it becomes a caricature or even a heresy. Today, methods in the church receive so much emphasis that we have reached a place of great danger. The Bible says little about method but dwells continually upon principle. This is why the Biblical Church has been so adaptable, flourishing, both in highly civilized societies and in primitive tribes.
What is our focus?
Today the evangelical Church is choking on its preoccupation with methods. In a word, the focus is on self, not on God and His glory.
One organization uses four steps to lead people to Christ. It not only presses people to use the steps but even copyrights them! A book is written about the ten churches that raise the biggest missionary offerings. Another extols the ten churches with a remarkably successful evangelistic program.
In our work we assume that God’s supreme purpose in the world is to save men, and accordingly we emphasize methods that promise to accomplish this. The fact is, however, that God’s supreme purpose is to glorify Himself.
Yet we continue to saturate our trainees with methods. In most cases the Apostle Paul would not have been accepted by our schools or our boards. When we bring a person from overseas for training in the West, he rarely returns home knowing more about God; rather he returns knowing more about the ingenuity of man.
Some time ago I was given responsibility for speaking at a great congress on evangelism. Beforehand one of the best known youth leaders in the world urged me not to talk about motives. I was stunned and asked why he had this concern. “Because I have a method for leading men to God. It works and therefore it must be the sovereign will of God.” I was so amazed that I had a most remarkable experience—I was lost for words.
“If it works it must be of God.” A handy, all-purpose slogan, suited for the board room of McDonald’s Hamburger chain and for all kinds of political deals! But what a perversion for the “kings and priests of God!”
The real problem is that we have become so man-centered that we are blind to the importance of keeping God central. As a result, we copy business methods that are extremely bad taste and act as if we, armed with the latest copyrighted approach, can lead a person to God. But, of course, only God can lead a person to Himself.
Our chief purpose is not to help man. The Bible teaches that our top priority is to glorify God. Until we realize this we shall think in terms of statistics, men and methods. Instead, let us be obsessed with the Lord Himself, “to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen.”—in Convention Herald.

BEWARE, THE PRAISE OF MEN!

A translation of a certain book was sent by its author to J. N. Darby. In the preface, the writer had given a most flattering opinion of the eminence and piety of J. N. Darby. We give in abbreviated form the letter Darby sent to the author, in which he repudiated the undue praise:
Pride is the greatest of all evils that beset us, and of all our enemies it is that which dies the slowest and the hardest; even the children of the world are able to discern this. Madam De Stael said, on her deathbed, “Do you know what is the last to die in man? It is ‘self-love.’” God hates pride above all things because it gives to man the place that belongs to Him Who is above, exalted over all. Pride intercepts communion with God, and draws down His chastisement, for “God resisteth the proud.”
I am sure, then, you will feel, my dear friend, that one cannot do another a greater injury than by praising him and feeding his pride. “A man that flattereth his neighbor spreadeth a net for his feet.” “A flattering mouth worketh ruin.” Be assured, moreover, that we are too short-sighted to be able to judge of the degree of our brother’s piety; we are not able to judge it aright without the balance of the sanctuary, and that is in the hand of Him Who searches the heart. Judge nothing, therefore, before the time, until the Lord come, and make manifest the counsels of the heart and render to every man his praise.
The most eminent Christian is one of those of whom no one has ever heard speak, some poor laborer, or servant whose all is Christ, and who does all for His eye and His alone. The first shall be last. Let us be persuaded to praise the Lord alone. He only is worthy of being praised, revered and adored. His goodness is never sufficiently celebrated. The song of the blessed, Revelation 5, praises none but Him Who redeemed them with His blood. It contains not one word of praise for any of their own number—not a word that classed them into eminent, or not eminent—all distinctions are lost in the common title, the redeemed, which is the happiness and glory of the whole body.
We cannot have two mouths—one for God’s praise, and one for man’s. May we, then, do now what the seraphim do above, who with two wings cover their faces, as a token of their confusion before the holy presence of the Lord; with two cover their feet, as if to hide their steps from themselves; and with the remaining two fly to execute their Lord’s will, while they cry, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.”

SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING

It’s the nature of God to make something out of nothing; therefore when anyone is nothing, God may yet make something of him.”—Martin Luther.
A once venerable bishop was a man of commanding abilities, and at an unusually early age was placed at the head of a college. This nourished the propensity to self-confidence and vanity, which became conspicuous even to the students. While he would have died the next hour at the stake rather than deny his Lord, he was far from having died to his self-trust, so that the Christ-life might fill his career. His stature was as much larger than that of other men as were his mental abilities.
One day he visited one of his students, who was raving in a delirium of fever. As the young man caught sight of the large figure of his instructor, he turned on him, and said wildly, “Great big Mr. President! great big Mr. President! You think yourself some great one. When you preach you are so big that you hide the Cross; all that we see is great big Mr. President!”
The Lord, by these delirious ravings, brought him to see his self-conceit; that self and not Christ, had been uppermost. He at once went out “weeping bitterly” to a lonely spot in the woods, and there on his face he confessed it all to his merciful Savior. There he learned the lesson of resurrection life. Forty years of eminently successful labor for Christ had borne the impress of that sacred hour of self-renunciation and trust. I heard him, in his old age, tell this incident with tears in his eyes, to a company of many hundred ministerial brethren.—Oxford Holiness Meetings.

SMALL BEGINNINGS

Great revivals among God’s people and awakenings among the ungodly never begin in a great way. They begin as oak trees begin. There is nothing startling and spectacular about the beginnings of an oak tree. In darkness, in loneliness, an acorn gives up its life, and the oak, at first only a tiny root and a tiny stem of green, is born out of the dissolution and death of the acorn. So revivals are born, so souls are won, so the Kingdom of God comes. Some one, no longer trying to save himself or to advance his own interests, dies—dies to self, to the world, to the praise of men, to the ambition of promotion, for place, for power, and lives unto Christ, lives to save men, and the awakening of sinners comes; souls are born into the kingdom of God, they rally round their leader and in turn become soul-winners. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”—S. L. Brengle.
Foam-like, man with vain pretensions
Dashing upwards sinks and dies;
Tree-like, saints to full dimensions
Solidly and slowly rise.
—Selected.
A gourd wound itself round a lofty palm, and in a few weeks climbed to its very top.
“How old mayest thou be?” asked the new-comer.
“About a hundred years.”
“About a hundred years, and no taller! Only look! I have grown as tall as you in fewer days than you count years!”
“I know that very well,” replied the palm; “every summer of my life a gourd has climbed up around me, as proud as thou art, and as short-lived as thou wilt be.”
—Selected.
Does it not belong to a participation in the humiliation of Jesus that I should consent that my Savior should be in me, first, as a little Child, and gradually grow up? But does not pride often desire that we should all at once experience the kingdom of God in its full power and that the powers of the world should be hurled down at one blow? But divine wisdom has ordered that only by fighting and tears we should grow up to the perfect man in Christ Jesus. The new birth is indeed a miracle, but it is no enchantment. Therefore the new man is not made perfect at one stroke; there needs contest and struggle, weeping and praying.
It was only the carnal eye which despised the lowliness of Jesus, as He lay there, a little helpless Babe in the cradle; and it is only the carnal eye which despises the beginnings of the spiritual life in the heart of man because they seem insignificant. But is not even a little spark, fire? Test it, blow upon it, add coals to it, and it will become a great fire.—Tholuck.
MESSAGE OF VICTORY, No. 31
April-June, 1976

GOD IS THE LOVABLE ONE!

It is necessary that we seek to acquaint ourselves with God as He has revealed Himself in the Scriptures. We must not content ourselves with the notions that people have about God; but we must diligently seek to know what He has disclosed regarding Himself. For the notions which the world has about God and His character are not the truth. And we do not want merely to gather our views from what the church says about God, or what Christian men say about Him. But we want to come to the very fountain, the revelation the Lord has made of Himself in His written Word; and step by step, as we read, to learn not only of the power, infinite wisdom, justice, and holiness of our God, but also of His gentleness, pity, beautifulness and bountifulness.
When we read and see what God has revealed of Himself in His Word, we shall find out more and more from it that God is the lovable One, God is the lovable One. Before I go any further, I stop and ask you what is the response of your inmost soul? Is God, to you, the lovable One? If not, you are not acquainted with Him. You have yet to find out that He is the most lovable One. The result will be that you will confide in Him unreservedly, at all times, in all circumstances. Though He slay you, yet will you trust in Him.
Read Psalm 9:9-10: “The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that know Thy name will put their trust in Thee; for Thou Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek Thee.” If these words are not according to the world’s views; if they are not according to the practice of church members, do not be troubled, for their notions are often plainly erroneous. We who learn to see God as He has revealed Himself in His Word, are so satisfied with Him and with His dealings with us, that we see everything He does is for our good.
On this account, it is deeply important for our usefulness and for our growth in faith that we get correct ideas of God from the fountain of truth contained in His Word. And, in the exercise of our faith, and in studying God’s Word, our Faith grows.
The Church is not aroused to see God as the beautiful and lovable One He is, and hence the littleness of blessedness. Oh, beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, seek to learn for yourselves, for I cannot tell you the blessedness. In the darkest moments I am able to confide in Him, for I know what a beautiful and kind and faithful and lovable Being He is. And if it be the will of God to put us in the furnace, let Him do it, that we may acquaint ourselves better with Him as He will reveal Himself to us. Let us say, “It is my Father—let Him do as He pleases.”
Fifty-one years ago, when I first began allowing God to deal with me—simply relying on Him for myself, family, taxes, traveling expenses and every other need—I rested on the simple promises of His Word. I found in Matthew sixth chapter the passage, “I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, whet ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? . . . Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
I believed the Word, rested on it, and practiced it . . . In the last half century of labor I have been able, with the simplicity of a little child, to rely upon God. I have had my trials, but I have laid hold on God, and so it has come that I have been sustained. It is not only permission, but positive command that He gives us to cast the burden upon Him. Oh, let us do it, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ. “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee” . . . And now come with your burdens, the burdens of your business, your profession, your trials and difficulties; and you will find help.
—George Muller.
The Hundredth Report of the Muller Orphanages records over £3,000,000 raised in the century, or an average of £30,000 a year, without a single advertisement or appeal or request for help, but by prayer only. As The Spectator said on the occasion of Muller’s death, let him who doubts or denies the power of prayer attempt to raise the same sum, and that for orphans, by the same methods, but without prayer, and let him see what happens.
Believe Good Things of God

When in the storm it seems to thee
That He Who rules the raging sea
Is sleeping—still, with bended knee,
Believe good things of God.

When thou hast sought in vain to find
The silver thread of love entwined
With life’s oft-tangled web—resigned,
Believe good things of God.

And should He smite thee till thy heart
Is crushed beneath the bruising smart,
Still, while the bitter tear-drops start,
Believe good things of God.

’Tis true, thou canst not understand,
The dealings of thy Father’s hand;
But, trusting what His love has planned,
Believe good things of God.

He loves thee! In that love confide—
Unchanging, faithful, true and tried;
And let now joy or grief betide,
Believe good things of God.

Thou canst not raise thy thoughts too high;
As spreads above the earth the sky,
So do His thoughts thy thoughts outvie;
Believe good things of God.

In spite of what thine eyes behold;
In spite of what thy fears have told;
Still to His gracious promise hold—
Believe good things of God.

For know that what thou canst believe
Thou shalt in His good time receive;
Thou canst not half His love conceive—
Believe good things of God.
—William Luff.
EDITORIAL

FAITH’S FIELD OF OPERATION

We desire to introduce the following by G. D. Watson because we believe it presents the key to that higher level of faith, the keynote to this issue of the Message of Victory. How our inner souls echo to what we read below! We have been privileged to know in the very slightest measure something of that stripping, disappointing, humbling process that reduces to utter dependence upon the mighty God Who can in the briefest span of time produce that which a life-time of earnest toil cannot accomplish. It will enable the reader to understand the strenuous dealings of a loving God to his soul.
“A nourishment to faith is the removing from the soul of natural and human props. Naturally we lean on a great many things in nature and society, and the Church, and friends, more than we are aware of.
“We think we depend on God alone, and never dream of how much we depend on other things until they are taken from us, and if they were not removed, we should go on, self-deceived, thinking that we relied on God for all things. But God designs to concentrate our faith in Him alone by removing all other foundations, and one step after another detaching us from all other supports.
“There are many souls which cannot endure this utter desolation of secondary supports, which would be more than they could bear, and they would react in open rebellion; so God allows them to have junior faith, and to lean on other things more or less. But to those who are able to undergo the strain of faith, He allows all sorts of disappointments—the death of bright hopes, the removing of earthly friendships or destruction of property, the multiplied infirmities of the body and mind, the misunderstanding of dear ones, until the landscape of religious life seems swept with a blizzard, to compel the soul to house itself in God alone.
“At the time the soul is having all secondary support removed, it does not perceive what is taking place within itself, but afterwards it finds that faith has been growing and expanding with every wave that has beat against it. Faith grows when we least expect it; storms and difficulties, temptations and conflicts, are its field of operation; like the stormy petrel on the ocean, faith has a supernatural glee in the howling of the storm and the dash of the spray.
“Faith not only is nourished by the removal of earthly props, but by the seeming removal of divine consolation. Our answer to prayer seems too long delayed, and faith is tested to the uttermost, when it seems as if the Lord has turned against us and all we can do is to continue holding on, with the pitiful cry of ‘Lord, help me!’
“Even then faith is expanding and growing beyond all we are aware of, by the very extension of the delay of the answer. Long delays serve to purify our faith, till everything that is spasmodic and ephemeral and whimsical is purged out of it, and nothing is left to it except faith alone!”

CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST
A Personal Testimony By J. B. Friend

Hudson Taylor once said: “A trip across the sea will make no one a missionary,” and my promotion to the status of “full-time worker” did not deal with the conflict within. The selfishness of my heart, with its accompanying pride and jealousy, pursued me into the Africa Evangelistic Band. In my unsaved days I could never play “second fiddle.” In my unsaved days I always had to be captain of the cricket or football team, and I found that this spirit was still present.
Unless I was the “star-turn” at a convention I was miserable. The first year in the A.E.B. it seemed as if Mr. von Staden valued my work more than that of the other Pilgrims, and I basked in the sunshine of his favor. The next year (1941) however, Brother G. came to the Transvaal, and achieved success far surpassing anything to which I could lay claim. It was a very bitter pill for me to swallow. I remember Brother G.’s coming to the Transvaal Headquarters. He explained: “I have come to fetch the big tent. I commenced in a house, but we were quickly crowded out. I had fortunately brought the small tent and that was filled in a few days. The first time I made an appeal there, half the congregation stood up to seek the Lord.”
I tried to say, “Praise the Lord.” That was the proper response I knew, yet I was so conscious that there was a bitterness and rebellion in my heart. Why should this man get the crowds, while I was fortunate if I got twenty or thirty to my meetings, with one or two seekers? Then to make matters worse, Mr. von Staden sent me to work in a tent campaign with Brother G. Our kind hostess (and she was kind) would be loud in her praise of my fellow-worker. “Wasn’t Mr. G. wonderful tonight,” she would come and whisper to me. Never a word of appreciation for me! How I wanted to say: “Mrs. S., let me tell you a few things about Mr. G., then you wouldn’t think so much of him.” Oh! praise the Lord for keeping my mouth shut. But praise the Lord still more for the day when I trusted the Lord to deal with the cause of “evil speaking.”
In August, 1942, after our honey-moon, we were sent to the Eastern Cape. Our Superintendent, a great soul-winner, greeted us with tremendous optimism. He almost seemed to think that we were “bringing revival in our suit-cases” though why, I do not know. We had meetings in important churches, good attendances throughout, but we “caught nothing.” This was literally true. After five months of evangelizing not a single soul; not one! This was repeated in Port Elizabeth where we had a series of tent campaigns. It was the time of the “Black Out” (due to war conditions), and I would walk the dark streets, 11.00 p.m., midnight, 1.00 a.m. crying to the Lord for power. I would be up again at 4.00 a.m. my usual hour in those days for commencing the “Morning Watch.” How my body stood the strain I do not know.
We concluded 1942 with a “Special Yuletide Campaign,” conducted from Christmas Day to New Year’s Eve. Again no fish! Our superintendent asked a well-known minister to preach at the final service. He brought a mighty message, and then made an appeal. As all our heads were bowed my heart was saying, “I hope no one raises his hand. If someone does, what will they think of me? They will say, ‘Friend preached a whole week, and no results. This man comes and the first night he gets souls.’” There was no response to the appeal, but, as I groped my way through the Black-Out to my lodgings, I felt like a murderer. I knew some of the people who had been in that service; knew that they needed salvation desperately; yet I wanted them to go to Hell to save my reputation.
In March, 1943, I went to the monthly meeting of the “Victorious Life Testimony.” The Rev. Kenneth Bedwell was preaching on Gal. 2:20. Like a flash of light from the sky this realization burst upon me: “For months you have been praying for power, but what do you really need?” A leader of camp-meetings in America became so tired of the same people coming back year after year for the “fulness” that finally he cried out, “What you people need is not the filling but the killing.” From that moment I no longer sought the Lord for power, but for crucifixion. When the Lord saw that I was on the right track he graciously began to give us souls. From that time onwards we had genuine seekers in every campaign. Yet I myself was not yet through into the experience.
In July, 1943 I went up to Windhoek, the capital of what used to be “German South West Africa,” to be one of the two chief speakers at a convention of the A.E.B. held in the Methodist Church there. The series of meetings commenced on a Thursday, and was planned for ten days. Right throughout I felt as flat as a pancake on which an elephant had sat. I said to myself, “All the money they spent to bring me here (it was a 1,000 mile train-journey) was wasted.” Fortunately my fellow-laborer was dear Mr. H. T. de Villiers, “a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost, mighty in the Scriptures,” and his ministry saved the convention.
By the Wednesday I was utterly desperate. I went out into the fields, determined to seek the Lord until He met me. I got nowhere, however, and, at last, utterly dispirited, crept into bed. The following evening I was sitting in front of the hall while the Chairman of the Convention conducted community singing. I do not know if it was a remark he made, or a line in one of the choruses, but suddenly there came a second flash of Heavenly light. It spoke thus to my heart: “All these months you have been seeking God for crucifixion, but you don’t really believe He can do it.” If, before that revealing moment, you had inquired, “Do you really think the Lord can deliver you from selfishness and pride and jealousy?”, I would have replied, “Why do you ask? Of course I do. That is what I preach.” But that night I saw my “evil heart of unbelief” (Heb. 3:12). While my lips had been crying, “Oh! God, deliver me from this accursed self,” my heart had been replying: “But, Lord, I know you can’t do it. You see, Lord, I’m a Baker” (my mother’s maiden name).
My mother had thirteen brothers and sisters, and it seemed is if they were all the domineering type. They all had to be “No. 1.” They were always right and the other man or woman was wrong. It seems awful to so slander your own family. Yet, unless I am frank, you will find it difficult to understand my problem. When I realized that I had been saying in unbelief, “I was born a Baker; I will die a Baker. I cannot be anything different,” I realized why for weeks and months I had been praying in vain. “Let not that man” (the doubter) “think that he shall receive anything from the Lord” (Jas. 1:7; Revised Version).
The next evening was Friday. I was due to bring the main message, but went to the Chairman and asked: “Would you mind if I just gave a few, short opening remarks?” He readily gave his consent. I have forgotten my exact words, but I said in effect, “Friends, for a week I have been preaching holiness and the victorious life, but I do not experience it myself. My heart is full of selfishness, pride, and jealously. Please pray for me.” I have often asked myself, “Was it necessary for me to strip my soul naked in that way?” I think one should be very cautious in a matter of this sort. I am afraid public confessions have been made, which have only brought embarrassment to the hearers, and unfortunate consequences to the one who made them. Yet to this day I believe that this baring of my inner soul was the will of God.
Up to that point the pride of my heart had produced hypocrisy. I so much wanted people to think well of me, that I was quite willing for them to have an inflated opinion of me. For instance in my early days in the A.E.B. dear Mr. von Staden would tell the friends, “Mr. Friend has made great sacrifices to enter this work. He has given up his splendid position in the commercial world to become a poor Pilgrim.” I think Mr. von Staden was judging my past in business life by the size of the car in which I was driving round. I should have gone to him and said, “Mr. von Staden, I had a good job in Cape Town, but not nearly as wonderful as you think.” To hear these flattering remarks, however, gave a big boost to my ego. I, therefore, did not correct these false impressions and was thus, again, guilty of “making a lie” (Rev. 21:27). But the fact that, on that Friday night, I was so honest about my condition, enabled God to pour His reality into my soul.
The immediate result of that confession was, however, just the very reverse of all I had expected. I had thought, “Now that I have so humbled myself, even into the dust, I will waken up tomorrow to find myself deluged with Divine blessing.” Instead, on the Saturday morning I felt as dead as the chair on which I sat. It seemed as if I had lost every scrap of religion I ever possessed; and as if God Himself had turned His back on me. For years I could not understand why, after obeying God, I should feel so utterly forsaken, until one day it suddenly dawned upon me: Well, of course, the Lord was knocking every prop out from under me, so that I would have nothing upon which I could lean but the naked Word of God.
The workers and speakers at this convention met together each morning for Bible study and united prayer, but I felt too miserable that Saturday to join with them. I went down to the Town Gardens and did something which was always a great comfort to me: i.e. I wrote a letter to my wife. When this rather lengthy epistle was concluded I looked at my watch: “Just time enough to post this letter, and make my way back home for lunch.” When, however, I arrived at the house I found it open, but deserted. They had all been invited out for lunch, but I was not there to tell. When they returned they were very sorry for me. “My, what you have missed! We had a wonderful meal!”
Yet to my dying day, I will be profoundly grateful for the lost lunch. I first of all prepared a little for the afternoon meeting, at which I had to speak, and then discovered that I still had twenty minutes to spare before I needed to walk down to the Methodist Church. In some way, I cannot remember now how, my attention was directed to 2 Cor. 5:14-15 as it is translated in the Revised Version. I noticed two things in that passage: first of all that the Lord Jesus had died on the Cross, not only to deliver us from Hell, (Praise the Lord for that marvelous redemption), but there was something even more in His precious Blood for us. “He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him Who for their sakes died and rose again.”
This is wonderful, I thought: I can be so really, so radically delivered from all selfishness that I will never again “live unto myself, but unto Him.” All my desiring and doing will arise from selfless love for the Master and men. I saw a second fact: “We thus judge, that if one died for all, therefore all died” (2 Cor. 5:14). I said: “All; why, that includes me.” Immediately I began to praise the Lord. At first it was just a “work” (John 6:29); i.e., a sheer act of the will. I had to make myself praise, for all my feelings were utterly against me.
If at that moment you had asked me, “How do you feel?”, I would have replied, “Feel? I feel awful. I feel as if I am going to Hell.” Yet I walked up and down my little room saying, “Lord, I thank Thee that when You died, I died with You.” As I did so, suddenly I knew it was real. Praise the Lord for His marvelous grace, and praise the Lord that from that day to this I have been able to say with truth and certainty, “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). Yet that assurance has only been mine because the initial faith of that first moment has been repeated day by day, because each morning, and in each test, I have “delivered up myself unto death” (2 Cor. 4:11).
This is, of course, not physical death, for it is “we who live” or, as it is in the original Greek, “we, the living ones” who are “delivered.” For instance, there have been times when I have been pushed into the background, and a younger man advanced to the position that might have seemed mine by right. Or, another worker has been used, while I seemed to have been laid on the shelf. At such moments the Devil has been quick to come and say, “You are the old Friend. Inside you are just as jealous as ever.” But the Holy Spirit, in His tender love, has shown me how to combat the Tempter. At that crucial moment I have cried, sometimes in the silence of my soul on a public platform or in a crowded congregation, “Lord, I thank Thee that when Thou didst die, I died with Thee.” And how quickly the Holy Spirit has responded to the faith of my heart with the renewed assurance that I was still “crucified.”
At other times it has just been the reverse. The Lord has been pleased to use me, and “The Accuser of the Brethren” (Rev. 12:10) has come with his insinuation, “You are just like you used to be; all puffed up inside.” As I have pleaded the power of the Cross I have once again been conscious that the only reaction to God’s gracious using of me, has been humble gratitude. Praise His Wonderful Name!

ONLY A TELEPHONE AWAY

“The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is the word of faith which we preach” (Rom. 10:8).
“The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him . . . in truth” (Psa. 145:18).

“A famous American business organization has as its advertising slogan: ‘We are as close to you as your telephone.’ Forgive me if I seem to put it too crudely, but that is what Heaven says to earth, what God says to man: ‘We are as close to you as the inner telephone of prayer.’ All God is asking for is a receiving set in your heart and a sincere call from your soul. He will answer!”
The above words are those of the Evangelist Paul Rees who is attempting to expose the biggest lie of Satan. That lie is the suggestion that God is far off and can be approached only by some circuitous, uncertain and very long path, if indeed He can be personally approached at all.
God’s time is always “now” and His place always here. The Apostle made this clear to the heathen of his day by saying, “God is not far from any one of us.” And to his own people, the Jews, he declared that they didn’t have to ascend into the heavens or descend into the earth to make contact with God but that “the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart.”
The evil one longs that we should believe that God is far distant. The greater the need of the Christian the more insistent will be his effort to impose this deception upon our minds. Recently the author found seven hours of water travel between himself and his dear wife who was ill. Depressed beyond words, he suddenly snapped out of it with a start as he remembered that his loved one was “only a telephone” away. Direct dialing brought communion in less time than it takes to tell. The wife received an instant uplifting.
God’s children are suffering all kinds of onslaughts, tolerating defeats, experiencing frustrations, bowing before problems, and all because they do not realize that the word of connection is in their hearts and that God’s ear is available now. His ear is not heavy that He cannot hear.—Editor.
Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth and Heaven; on which God’s messages of love fly so fast, that before we call He answers, and while we are yet speaking, He hears. But if that telegraphic wire be snapped, how can we receive the promises?—C. H. Spurgeon.
O seekest thou afar
The secret place, wherein may meet
Thy Lord and thou—where at His feet,
Without a voice of earth to mar
The calm, deep fellowship, thy heart
May worship, utterly alone
With His life only, and thine own,
And all the world apart?

It is not far away
Beyond some distant gates—
The secret place, wherein He waits,
Even today,
To talk with thee.
Dost thou not see—
With eyes so pitifully dim,
And heart so earthbound, even yet—
The center of thy being, thine,
Is set apart by Him,
For His abode! And there,
Making the place divinely fair,
With His own presence, there, I say,
His throne is set.
—E. H. Divall.
A GOD-APPOINTED BRIDGE
By Northcote Deck

Between Rom. 7:24, “O wretched man that I am,” and Rom. 7:25, “I thank God through Jesus Christ,” there is a great gulf fixed! And, alas, most believers seldom cross it, nor find a bridge to span this spiritual chasm! For I suppose most believers (from their own testimonies) and all carnal Christians habitually live and die on the wrong side of the gulf that comes at verse 24. They wander still in the wilderness of the flesh, the “I” country, with its continual conflict and defeat. For you can go to Heaven from verse 23, and probably most believers do, for, except on rare occasions, they get no farther. Hear their despairing voices: “What I hate, that I do” (Chap. 7:18). “For the good that I would (do) I do not, but the evil that I would not, that I do” (v. 19), for “when I would do good, evil is present with me” (v. 21), “bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (v. 23). Could you not have written just those words? Have you not often despaired like that? Many and many a time I did as a young medical student.
And to further guide us, and make clear where we dwell, the spiritual landscape of the flesh is so painfully described in Galatians 5:17. “The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery . . . uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry . . . hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife . . . envyings . . . and such like.” These must be our sordid, hateful surroundings, in large measure, unless we can find some way of deliverance and escape.
Yet across the gulf, the pons asinorum as it were of the spiritual life, there waits for every humblest believer this “better land” of God. It is indeed “a land of pure delight.” In it there “blaze the unimaginable flowers” and fruit of the Spirit. “Heart’s ease” grows well in that fair summer valley along with “joy and peace in believing.” And among other best blossomings there is “a loyal will” and “passion for souls,” and “prevailing prayer.” “Love to all saints,” too, you will find flourishing there, and “power for service” very abundantly. This is indeed “the Lord’s doing, it is marvelous in our eyes.” “Let us go up at once and possess it.”
Yet first let us clearly realize that there are two great opposing spiritual powers, with two distinct codes of laws, on either side of the gulf. On this side. In the realm of the flesh, there is “the law of sin and death.” Here, “the whole world lieth in the evil one,” and Satan has power and great authority. But on the far side there is the realm of God, where only “the law of the Spirit” is in force. And can we but cross over and abide there, we are passed completely beyond the jurisdiction of the powers of darkness, and so, automatically, are liberated from “sin’s dominion.”
To emphasize how far-reaching and important is the difference of government and the altered legal status to the believer, in these two different realms, it is worth-while instancing the slave-holding days in America. There, though for a time a slave might escape from his master in the United States, his liberty was short-lived. The whole weight of the law of the land was against him. But let him once cross the border into Canada, and he was free, automatically free. For he had passed into a new realm where slavery was illegal. And now the whole weight of the law of the land was on his side, protecting him from his old masters. A yard across the border and he was a free man; free, not because he was stronger in himself, or more able to fight and defend himself, but because he had passed right beyond the reach of the old law and the old master. And more, so long as he stayed in Canada he could not be recaptured. For the law of Canada had set him free from the then-slave-holding laws of America.
Now at the new birth a definite change took place in my relationship to “the flesh,” whose realm is “the law of sin.” For I am specifically told (chap. 8:5) that “if so be the Spirit of God dwell in me (as at a conversion) now I am no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” Yet the flesh is not eradicated. During my earthly life there remains enough of the flesh in me for me to go on deliberately living “after the flesh” (chap. 8:12) as a carnal Christian. But as long as I am living on that level I am on the wrong side of the gulf, and am still in Satan’s power and jurisdiction. And so sin will still have dominion over me, for with the flesh I am still serving the “law of sin” (chap. 7:25), and I must be defeated. But when in God’s appointed way I cross the gulf between verses 24 and 25, and so begin to “walk in the Spirit,” as I am urgently exhorted by God, I am entered on a new realm. And at once, automatically, “the law of the Spirit has set me free from the (old) law of sin and death” and Satan (chap. 8:2). And now “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
How then am I to deal with “the flesh” which still remains in me? How am I to cross the gulf and to dwell in the realm of the Spirit? To discover that secret I must go back from what seems to be Paul’s recital of his experience in chapter seven, to his revelation of the doctrine in the sixth chapter. I must go back seeking a bridge with which to span the great gulf. And I find just such a God-appointed bridge in Romans 6:11. Here it is: “Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin,” but reckon ye yourselves to be “alive unto God through Jesus Christ.” Here, then, is the double “reckoning” which is God’s one appointed way for us to deal with the flesh. Here is His perfect and sufficient way of holiness and victory over sin. Let us interpret it in simpler language.
There is first the negative, “reckon . . . yourselves dead.” Now we know that at the grave, the flesh and its fatal proneness to sin is finally finished with. For, “he that is dead is free from sin.” But God is not prepared for many of us to die like that just yet. We have not yet “finished our course.” But as “the flesh” cannot be improved, it must die somehow, if we are to be freed from sin. And so, while we are on earth still, the best thing God can do with the flesh is to count that it is dead, that it died when we died with Christ at conversion (chap. 6:6,8). That is our legal position or standing in God’s eyes. And now He urgently exhorts us to make it true in experience, by “reckoning” the flesh dead, by treating it just as if I were a dead man, and so had nothing further to do with my own natural fleshly desires and ways.
A simple, literal example of such “reckoning dead” in practice was the case of two fashionable girls, recently converted to God. They were asked to a ball by a rich relation, and this is the answer they sent: “We are sorry to have to refuse your invitation. But the fact is it is not possible for us to be present with you, for we are dead! We died with Christ a week ago, so we cannot come!” That was a very simple and effectual putting in the place of death, the old natural self and its desires, of being “crucified with Christ.” But this “reckoning” ourselves literally to be “as dead,” here commanded, is none other than the “absolute surrender” many of us have been practicing with thankful hearts for years, a thought which is also literally Scriptural. For in Romans 6:13, 19, we are exhorted to “yield” or “surrender” ourselves, and our members, “servants” or “bond-slaves” unto God, so that we may be at God’s absolute disposal. And thus we are in effect “as good as dead” to the flesh and our own lusts and desires so long as that “reckoning” is maintained.
But this “reckoning” ourselves as dead, or absolute surrender, is only half the secret. By itself it is not enough for deliverance. And I remember many, many times honestly and wholly surrendering, as a student, without finding deliverance. Climbing out, as it were, on this single half of the bridge, and vainly longing for the other side, for the land and fruit of the Spirit, where a number of my friends so evidently were already. But one only relapsed again into the wilderness of despair. For one was only using half the bridge, and it was inadequate, and could not bear me over. And surely it is evident why. “Reckoning dead” is not life. It is not enough for the house to be “empty, swept and garnished.” It must be occupied, and by Christ Himself. For holiness is not negative, not the mere absence of sin. Holiness is Christ Himself and His perfections appropriated.
So, first, I must make room for Him by this “reckoning dead,” and emptying of self. The temple must be cleansed and prepared by the confession of all known sin, and the giving up of all doubtful practices. But I still need Him as my life, Him, ministered and imparted to me by the Holy Spirit, that I may overcome and “walk in the Spirit.”
Now it is true that in “The Acts” the miracle of Pentecost is described differently. There the wonderful change is described by God: “They were all filled with the Holy Ghost and with power.” And today we likewise are commanded in our turn to “be filled with the Spirit.” Whose, then is the power through which we are to overcome? Some of us, using the language of the Acts, may have been in the habit of thinking it was the Holy Ghost’s own power, that He did the work, and through Him we are to overcome. But it seems clear that, though He is the Executive of the Godhead and as such is to be recognized and honored, and not ignored as a Person, still, the power He imparts, through which we are to overcome, is Christ Himself in His resurrection life.
So now we are ready for the second half of the bridge, for the positive “reckoning.” Reckon yourselves “alive . . . through Jesus Christ,” or “alive” with the life of Christ. And that just means my continually appropriating Christ Himself through the Holy Ghost, as my present and perfect sufficiency. And this appropriation has got to be done by what should be to me the usual, normal act of faith of the Christian. It will not be by my merely “knowing” the truth. I must do more than know it. I must act upon it.
Let us be quite clear about this. “The just” is not only converted by the act of faith, to go on afterwards by works and self-effort. Four times over in the Scriptures we are exhorted: “The just shall live by faith,” that is, by daily appropriating our needed “supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:19), by a succession of definite daily acts of faith. So, as a believer, by this deliberate exercise of faith, I must continually claim and receive, and give thanks for Christ, in all His fulness, imparted to me by the Holy Spirit.
And again let us reiterate, in this deliberate act of appropriation we are depending, not on our feelings of blessing, which change so quickly, but upon God’s faithfulness and promises which never change. Having done our part in asking for, and accepting, and giving thanks, we are now depending on His having done His part, in filling and empowering, though we may feel no different. Personally, what seemed the turning point, the final key, which at the last opened the gates of glory, to one who had been a believer since childhood, though in constant defeat and despair, was the believing that God had answered my definite act of Faith, and had filled with the Holy Ghost though one felt no different. The transaction had been completed on God’s side and on mine, and one’s feelings formed no part of the compact. And I remember that attitude of blind trust, of believing, in spite of feelings, that God had answered and one was “filled” had to be maintained for four long desperate days. Then the Holy Spirit broke through and graciously manifested Himself in power and glory and burning joy, which could not be mistaken, and which completely transformed life, and service, and the whole world.
But that was only the beginning. This double “reckoning” of surrender and appropriation may bring a tremendous crisis into the believer who thus for the first time is “filled with the Holy Ghost.” But, as has so often been said, this first crisis is but to lead to a continued process by which, again and again, I must appropriate Christ Jesus, through the Holy Ghost, for my daily needs.
Having discovered the great secret, the bridge will need to be used again and again (even many times in the day), as the happy years of service and blessing go by. For in a moment we can relapse into the realm of the flesh, and its sins and lusts and failures. But the gulf is no longer impassable! God’s way of deliverance has been discovered. The bridge is available, and will always prove effectual.
It is significant that we are not told when the apostle passed through the spiritual experience of Romans seven, or what happened to him between verses 24 and 25. Surely, like the “thorn in the flesh” both are left undefined that each of us may fill in our own varying spiritual experiences. But I believe that (though often unrealized), with every heart truly “filled with the Holy Ghost,” when analyzed, the experience will be found to have consisted in jut these two complementary acts, emptying and filling, surrender and appropriation, dying and being made alive. And I think as the years go by, and we thankfully continue to practice this reaction of the soul, the two acts will become merged in one. And we shall become more practiced and more habitual in maintaining the position, as it becomes more natural and instinctive to seek to maintain an ungrieved conscience before God. “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
Certainty!
God the Holy Ghost helping you, resolve in your hearts this day that all the boasted discoveries of science you will doubt, all the affirmations of the wise you will doubt, all the speculations of great thinkers you will doubt, all your own feelings and all the conclusions drawn from outward circumstances you will doubt, yea and everything that seems to be demonstrable to a certainty you will doubt, but never, never, never, while eternity shall last, will you suffer the thought to pass your mind that God can ever in the least degree run back from anything that He has spoken, or change the word that has gone forth of His lips.—C. H. Spurgeon.
The Fullness of Faith
By S. A. Keen
Acts 6:5: “A man full of faith.”
Every believer has faith, but not every believer is full of faith; with much faith there may coexist much lack of faith. Therefore Paul longed to see the faces of the brethren at Thessalonica, that he “might perfect that which was lacking in their faith.” The soul may have saving faith and still lack a fulness of faith. We now take up the subject of special faith, which, under various phases, is as clearly distinguished in the Scripture from saving faith as saving faith is from unbelief.
Much of the misapprehension which exists respecting the nature of faith arises from confounding faith in its saving measure with faith in the measure of its fulness. SAVING FAITH is a voluntary act of the soul, by which it appropriates salvation. THE FULNESS OF FAITH is a state of the soul in which it apprehends divine and spiritual things. It is a temper of mind—an entirely new frame of heart. It is faith shorn of none of its saving efficacy, graduated into the “substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen” by the baptism of the Holy Ghost in His indwelling presence received into the soul. Let us notice some of the characteristics of THE FULNESS OF FAITH:

1. A consciously exclusive confidence in God.

Having the fulness of faith, the soul continuously exclaims, under all circumstances, with the Psalmist, “Wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.” It is such a vision and persuasion of God’s almightiness, all-lovingness, and all-faithfulness as that the soul is given a set God-ward. It will not look for help self-ward, man-ward, earth-ward, circumstance-ward—or other-ward. Faith in an imperfect measure is often deluded by favorable circumstances or promising indications, only to be disappointed.
I recall in my own early ministry how my immature faith was disappointed on one occasion in its hopes, because it unconsciously reposed in indications. A protracted meeting was begun; the attendance was large; general interest good; my heart prophesied to itself a glorious revival. But the interest evanesced; the results were meager. My faith had been misplaced. As I now know, I had great faith in the indications, and but little faith in God.
A noted evangelist taught me in a very abrupt way a lesson of faith. I had been chosen to welcome him to the city where he was to labor. I met him on his arrival at the station; introduced myself to him, when he at once informally said to me: “Have you faith in God?” I replied: “Our preparatory services have been good; the indications are favorable.” Instantly he rejoined: “We can’t depend on good meetings, favorable indications, or anything of that kind. Have you faith in God?” Then as I came to think of it, I found that I had much faith in the auspicious meetings already held, and in the coming evangelist, but very little faith in God.
The soul that is full of faith never becomes confounded by unconscious dependence upon apparent encouragements. Neither will discouragements dismay it. Oppositions, adversities, difficulties, do not enter into its calculations. It believes fully that all things are possible to him that believeth. It anticipates revivals in the face of prevalent deadness; expects victory where opposition is the most formidable; and keeps in heart where providences are the most disheartening. The fact is, a soul full of faith can’t be discouraged, because it knows it shall not be disappointed. It says, “We are fully able to go up,” though the rabble of unbelief clamors: “We can’t.” It utters the victorious hallelujahs which bring the walls of every frowning Jericho into the dust.
A pastor went to his field of labor; everything was unpromising; religion was in great decline. His wife said: “There can be no success here.” His reply was: “Faithful is He Who hath promised, Who also will do it.” That faith was honored in a most wonderful ingathering of souls and a great quickening of the Church a few months later. Faith in its fulness is
“A faith that shines more bright and clear
When tempests rage without,
That when in danger knows no fear,
In darkness feels no doubt.”
A man full of faith is a man of God. He has sustained conviction that God can not be unfaithful, and has an impressive sense that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who trust Him.

2. A consciously vivid apprehension of Christ.

Having the fulness of faith, Christ is to the soul, the Son of God indeed. The divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ becomes a spiritual verity, rather than a doctrinal conception. The soul on the heights of the fulness of faith exclaims, “My Lord and my God,” as never before. The sacrificial work of Christ receives under the illumination of faith in its fulness a new interpretation to the heart. The mystery of the cross becomes the glory of the soul.
The blood of the cross is exalted into infinite worth; it is seen as the sole ground of reconciliation, justification, sanctification, and eternal redemption. It is recognized not as a part, but as the whole of the atoning work; not as its symbol, but as its substance. The blood has wondrous significance to one who is full of faith. The substitutional propitiatory significance of the death of Christ is no longer a dogma, but a felt truth.
Moreover, the Name of Jesus becomes freighted with a power that is measureless; it is seen as “The Name high over all;” as the prevailing element of successful prayer; as the mediatorial channel of all communion and communication between God and man; as the true Jacob’s ladder which joins earth and Heaven, and turns Christian life into a Bethel—a house of God.
Christ becomes the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the all and in all to the soul which has come into the fulness of faith. So realized is Jesus to the soul in sensible glory that it exclaims:
“O could I speak the matchless worth;
O could I sound the glories forth,
Which in my Savior shine,
I’d soar and touch the heavenly strings,
And vie with Gabriel while he sings,
In notes almost divine!”
I once called upon a lady who had gone through deep waters of sorrow. When I met her she had not been inside of a church for four years, though a Christian. The death of her husband had so saddened her by the peculiar circumstances under which it had occurred, that she could not summon courage to take her accustomed place in the house of God. Besides, the shadow of sorrow rested so deeply upon her heart that she had kept, all through those four years, lights burning every night in every room of her house, not out of superstition, but because she felt that natural darkness, superadded to the darkness of her sorrow, was more than she could bear.
I said to her: “Jesus will help you and comfort you.” She replied petulantly: “You ministers say Jesus will be this and Jesus will be that to the soul, but He has been nothing to me in this sorrow.” I saw she was not in a condition to be talked with much. She was holding on to Jesus as her Savior, but had not embraced Him as her Comforter.
She was made the subject of special prayer by a few to whom her case was reported. A few weeks afterwards she came to one of our morning meetings. I was almost startled when I saw her enter the door. A few minutes after the meeting began she arose, and said in almost an exclamatory tone: “It is true, it is true! Jesus can help a broken heart! Oh, He came into my soul yesterday, and I blew out all the lights last night, and my soul and my home are now brighter than when all were burning.” When she opened her heart and received the Comforter, there sprang up in her heart a fulness of faith which realized Jesus to her in all His “matchless worth.”

3. A consciously higher appreciation of God’s Word.

The Bible is an infallible book to the soul that is full of faith. It is then received as a divine revelation, as the very Word of God. It becomes a volume all instinct with holy inspiration. The plenary inspiration of the Holy Scripture passes from being a merely doctrinal conception into a spiritual apprehension. He who has come into a fulness of faith drops all questioning and quibbling as to the complete inspiration and divine authority of the Scriptures. Their very enigmas, difficulties, and obscurities are accepted as significant, and what is incomprehensible in them is believed even more fully than what is clearly understood. The fulness of faith not only accepts the Bible as an inspired book, but it also renders it an illuminated book. It reads it by a new light, and sees in it new meaning. The Bible, hitherto uninteresting, becomes a supreme delight.
Once in my ministry a lady came to me who was a very creditable worker in my church, and a converted woman. She said to me: “I don’t love to read the Bible. I haven’t a relish for it. I find that I prefer to read the magazines and the best authors and current papers. There must be something wrong. I know I ought to love the Bible.” I said: “There is something wrong. You need that baptism of the Holy Spirit that will unseal the Book, and illuminate its pages so that your soul will exclaim, ‘How I love Thy law!’”
About two months after she came to me and said: “O, the Bible is a changed book to me now! O, it is a new book, such a precious book! I only wish I had more hours in which to linger over its pages!” I asked her what had transformed it so wonderfully to her. She replied: “I went with it open before me on my knees one day, and I said: ‘Give me, Lord, a heart to love and delight in Thy Word,’ and there came to me such a view of its truth, and such a sense of its divine origin, that my heart was filled with a completeness of faith in it, and ever since it has been a glorious enjoyment to me.”
The fulness of faith compromises such an immediate confidence in God, such an apprehension of Christ, and such a full reception of the Bible as the Word of God, as gives to Christian experience an effectiveness, enjoyment, and completeness that saving faith alone does not compass. Have we this baptism of faith? The triumphant experience of Stephen is not beyond the reach of every believer. He was a “a man full of faith.”
“Lord give us such a faith as this,
And then, whate’er may come,
We’ll taste, e’en here, the hallow bliss
Of an eternal home.”
—Faith Papers.
I find that, while faith is steady, nothing can disquiet me; and when faith totters, nothing can establish me.—Belcher.
To be strong in faith two things are needful—a very low esteem of ourselves and a very high esteem of Christ.—R. Chapman.
Belief is the abandonment of all claim to merit. That is why it is so difficult to believe.—Oswald Chambers.
My Happiness Is All In Thee
Trouble and loss and grief and pain
Have crowded all my forty years;
I never could my wish obtain
And own at last with joyful tears
The man whom God delights to bless,
He never curses with success.
How oft didst Thou my soul withhold,
And baffle my pursuit of fame,
And mortify my lust of gold,
And blast me in my surest aim,
Withdraw my animal delight,
And starve my groveling appetite!
Thy goodness, obstinate to save,
Hath all my airy schemes o’erthrown;
My will Thou wouldst not let me have;
With blushing thankfulness I own
I envied oft the swine their meat,
But could not gain the husks to eat.
Thou wouldst not let the captive go,
Or leave me to my carnal will,
Thy love forbad my rest below,
Thy patient love pursued me still
And forced me from my sin to part,
And tore the idol from my heart.
Thrice happy loss which makes me see
My happiness is all in Thee.
—Charles Wesley.

“My all is on the altar,
I am waiting for the fire.”
“That is absolute absurdity.  Nobody ever waited for the fire when  ‘all ‘ was on the altar.  Let a man sing, if he like,
‘A part is on the altar;
I am waiting for the fire.’
“When you and I put our all on the altar the fire falls directly.”

EDITORIAL
DECLINE OF HOLINESS

John Wesley declared that the business of the people, called Methodists, was “to spread scriptural holiness over these lands.”  He also affirmed that he had noticed that the plain, frequent preaching of this message always resulted in revivals.  Those to whom this truth is most precious today, naturally decry the decline both in the preaching and enforcing of this glorious heritage.  Other emphases have gained ascendancy with very different results.  We ask, why the decline in the declaration of the message and in the possession of the glorious reality?
The basic cause is the substitution of formula for reality.  Such substitution is all too easy because faith which is the secret of all spiritual experience is a force unseen by the human eye.  The “holiness” ministry is far from blameless here.  A desire for the sense of achievement and the demand for statistics by committees and by many others, becomes so pressing that it produces prolonged appeals for people to “come out for sanctification.”  A formula is offered which requires a mere mental assent and the seekers are either told that they are now sanctified or they are at least encouraged by inference to believe so.
Lela McConnell was an instrument mightily used in the hills of Kentucky, U.S.A., until her home-call a few years ago.  How faithfully she deals with this question!
“I fear that often the distinction between believing what God says, and knowing what God does, is ignored, so that the real act of faith is omitted.  This omission always produces a spiritless class of witnesses to regeneration and to sanctification.  Just from theory they profess a spiritual experience which they do not possess.  These dear souls are always powerless.  They are devoid of love and often fanatical.  They make light of the striving to ‘enter in’ of others.
“No doubt many dear people are innocent of their true condition.  They have been taught ‘to take it by faith’ and have no consciousness of any vital experience.  They have been told—God says so, and I am believing His Word.  The danger lies in the fact that they did not really get anything.  You will hear them say, ‘I am standing by faith.’  Standing by faith, beloved, is neither the work of regeneration nor of holiness.  These dear people have not received the ‘end of their faith.’  The end of one’s faith is the salvation of the soul, and, if full salvation is sought, it is the actual cleansing of the heart from all carnality and the Holy Ghost coming in to abide.  They have not received the end of their faith, they have only believed it.  Receiving it is a conscious act.  A reality to be received must be perceptible to the one that receives it.  Of course faith in the truthfulness of God’s Word is essential to any degree of salvation, but it alone is not sufficient for salvation.  ‘Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it’ (1Thess. 5:24).  We must receive the thing His promise embraces.
“This ‘believe you’ve got it and you have,’ has resulted in filling our churches and holiness camp meetings with unconverted and unsanctified people.”
Another fundamental error and one that leads to self-righteousness and smugness is the belief that this gift is an attainment that becomes a part of us and remains so.  John Wesley in his “Plain Account of Christian Perfection” puts it thus:
“The best of men say, ‘Thou art my light, my holiness my heaven.  Through my union with Thee, I am full of light, of holiness and happiness.  But if left to myself, I should be nothing but sin, darkness, hell.’”
A modern writer, Mr. Schaeffer, agrees with Wesley and says:
“It  is not my victory.  It is always Christ’s victory.  It is always Christ’s work and Christ’s holiness.  When I begin to think and to grow in the idea of my victory, there is really no true victory.  To the intent that I am thinking about my sanctification, there is no real sanctification.  I must see it always as Christ’s.
“Indeed it is only as we consciously bring each victory to His feet, and keep it there as we think of it—and especially as we speak of it—that we can avoid the pride of that victory; which can be worse than the sin over which we claim to have had the victory.  The greater the victory, the greater need of placing it consciously (and, as we speak of it, vocally) at His feet.”
Another great defect in the claims of many, has been the glorification of the crisis experience out of proportion and the neglect of the momentary supply of grace and the perpetual momentary cleansing flow.  Both are a part of this great provision—the fruit of full redemption and restoration from the effects of the Fall.  Of course there is the last moment when sin holds an inner dominion in our hearts, and the first moment when Christ has become Lord and Master, with all that that means.  But that is only the opening of the “flood gates.”  The steady flow must continue as we constantly look by the same faith that produced the crisis, for the continuity of grace and victory.
Still another error is the wrong concept of “power.”  Heaven’s power never exalts the channel—always the Source; neither does true spiritual power make comfortable in their emotional enthusiasm, unregenerate and unsanctified hearts.  The big modern successes are far too often soulish and have exactly the opposite effect they should have.  “When he is come (the Comforter, the Holy Ghost) he will reprove the world.”  True power is at first searching, condemning.  True power is often humiliating.  True power calls more often for immediate mourning than for celebration.  It takes courage and fresh and deep personal communion with God, to insist on true power being unleashed today.
Then, too, there has grown up steadily in “holiness” ranks the idea that temporal prosperity and even affluence are a mark of blessing.  This is inconsistent with the declared necessity of self-denial as a requisite for discipleship.  Thrift accompanies grace and acquisition becomes an easy goal but it is not the pathway to continued spiritual power and authority.
There is much more that could be said, but there is no question but that Holiness is the “Central Idea of Christianity” as one writer has termed it.  The Spirit-filled, self-crucified soul has the only answer to the need of the church and there is no filling of the Spirit without death to “the old man.”  Calvary must always precede Pentecost.

O God, no proper place I see,
     No work that I can do;
Myself I offer unto Thee,
     A sacrifice anew.

If Thou with clear sign from on high
     Will mark me as Thine own,
How soon, how gladly would I die,
     Unhonored and unknown.
—F. W. H. Meyers.

The utmost consecration possible yesterday makes possible and imperative a larger consecration today.—Charles Inwood.

JOHN INSKIP—PROMOTER OF HOLINESS

(The personal experience of a Methodist minister, who first opposed the truth of entire sanctification, and then became one of its more able promoters.)

John S. Inskip was born in the well-known little town of Huntingdon, England, on August 10, 1816.  His parents emigrated to Delaware, U.S.A., leaving their four-year-old lad to join them in the new country a year later.  The home was not a Christian one.  His father held infidelic beliefs and forbade any of his fourteen children to attend Sunday School.  This brought sadness to the heart of young John, but the early conversion of a sister had a powerful influence upon him.  At the age of sixteen, John was truly born-again and from that time was most eager to see others come into the same personal experience with Christ.  We give his own personal testimony below.—Editor.
I was awakened and converted to God April 2, 1832.  Although I encountered much opposition from my misguided parents, the Lord sustained and directed me.  Aided by divine grace, I continued steadfast and “witnessed a good confession” for Christ.
At length it was impressed upon my mind that God had called me to the work of the ministry.  A field of labor being opened, I commenced my itinerant life and consecrated myself to the service of God and the responsible duties of my calling.
The subject of entire sanctification attracted my attention.  I was profoundly interested in it at the time of my ordination, when the bishop asked me the solemn and heart-searching question, “Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?  Are you groaning after it?”
At that moment I came very near to this great salvation.  A little encouragement from anyone familiar with the deep things of God would have been of infinite benefit to me and might have so modified my subsequent experience as to have greatly increased my power with God and man.  Often, indeed, a similar crisis has occurred in my life, but, alas, it was allowed to pass away unimproved.
Various influences combined to change my views of the doctrine, and more especially of the experience of Christian perfection.  My mind, it is true, adhered to the doctrine as a peculiarity of our Methodist creed.  Notwithstanding this, I became exceedingly hostile to a profession of the experience.
My hostility assumed a more reprehensible form than doubt or skepticism.  It became, in fact, a deep-seated prejudice, and sometimes developed into the most uncharitable criticisms upon those who professed the blessing and the methods which they adopted to promulgate it.  The remembrance of this fact is often an occasion of great humiliation before God and my brethren.  I am aware that I did it “ignorantly in unbelief.”  Still the error was a very grievous one and, in a certain sense was “without excuse.”  I ought to have known better and done differently, but God has graciously forgiven me.
For nearly two years prior to the time when it pleased God to bestow this grace upon me, I had been living a more devout life than at any former period of my history.  My personal religious interests had been more prominently in view and had excited a larger measure of attention and effort than usual.
This was not, however, with any special reference to the attainment of the definite blessing of purity.  I sought after a closer walk with God and frequently was conscious of extraordinary power in the pulpit and divine fellowship in the closet.  Yet the idea of seeking entire sanctification, I think, did not once enter my mind.
At the Sing Sing camp meeting, on August 19, 1864, my wife sought and found this “perfect rest.”  Prior to leaving home she had been impressed that she would receive this blessing.  She was present at most of the meetings in which the subject of holiness was presented as a “specialty” and also attended and took part in all the usual services of the hour.  Her entire time was given and all the energies of her nature were aroused and drawn toward this momentous theme.
On the morning of the last day of the meeting the Lord heard and answered her cry.  The question came up, Would you be willing to acknowledge this blessing to your husband and others?  She made an affirmative response and, “looking unto Jesus” by faith, she felt the all-cleansing blood applied and rejoiced in the assurance that she was made “every whit whole.”  In an instant the great transaction was done.  The intelligence soon reached me.  I cannot say I was surprised.  Yet I was afflicted and mortified.  To the individual who communicated the fact I expressed myself in terms of the most decided disapprobation.
This, however, only increased my embarrassment and difficulty.  I could scarcely, sometimes, tell how I felt or what I should do.  In the meantime my wife, wherever she went, continued to tell the “wondrous story.”  She testified that Christ had become to her, “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
Upon returning home, she embraced the earliest opportunity to give her testimony to the church.  This produced quite a sensation, and a number of persons came forward to the altar, earnestly seeking a clean heart.
The impression wrought in my own mind was such as led me to call on God for a larger measure of the influence of the Comforter, that I might be a more efficient laborer in the vineyard.  I was wonderfully quickened.  My whole soul was stirred within me. Yet, even at this moment, I had not definitely determined to seek the blessing of holiness.  The effect of my wife’s testimony and spirit was such, however, as to command my attention and confidence.  I could not but be persuaded that her experience was in harmony with the teachings of the Bible, and that if I should attain to it my usefulness and enjoyment would be greatly increased.
Matters continued in this indefinite state until the ensuing Sabbath morning, when I was led to preach on these words:  “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.”  In pressing home upon the consciences of the people this admonition, I was led to speak with great earnestness, and endeavored to urge them to immediate and decisive action.  My appeals were unusually pointed and direct.  The interest of the hour became more and more intensified as the train of thought I was pursuing developed.
A culminating crisis was soon reached, and in the most vehement manner I cried out, “Brethren, lay aside every weight.  Do this now.  You can do it now and therefore you should.  It is your privilege and therefore it is your duty at this moment to make a consecration of your all to God, and to declare that you will henceforth be wholly and forever the Lord’s.”
I endeavored to make this point very clear and repeated with increased earnestness, “Let us now lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us.”  I dwelt upon this, and as I continued to urge the admonition, a voice within said, “Do this yourself.”  I paused a moment, and the voice repeated, “Do this yourself and do it now.”
Of course, in the circumstances, I could consistently do but one thing, and that was to obey.  My mind was clearly persuaded of the correctness of the views I had presented and advised my people to adopt.  Hence it was proper that I should lead in their practical observance and, with so marked and startling a call, I could not hesitate.
Therefore I proceeded thus:  “Come, brethren, follow your pastor!  I am determined to lay aside every weight!  I call Heaven and earth to witness that I now declare I will be henceforth wholly and forever the Lord’s.”
Seeing that I had thus given myself in an “everlasting covenant” to the Lord and had, so far as I could, come out and separated myself unto God, my faith gathered strength and “looking unto Jesus,” I exclaimed with a rapture perfectly unutterable, “I am, O Lord, wholly and forever Thine.”
Mr. Inskip had the great joy, on that same night when he came into the wonderful experience of full salvation, of seeing eight souls saved.  Many more followed.  Long prejudiced against a certain type of testimony to holiness which he had often heard, the preacher at first inclined not to speak out too definitely concerning this great inner change.  But the Word of God convinced him that this was a wrong attitude and the more he proclaimed cleansing through “the blood of Jesus Christ,” the more the witness within flamed up, till it became a passion to shout out the wonderful news to all, far and near.
One habit which he had tried numbers of times to break was that of smoking tobacco.  He had even tried to sign a pledge to abstain, but although a preacher, he was still bound by the habit.  It was not until he had received the experience, above related, that the complete breaking of the inveterate habit was made possible.  He came to loathe the very smell of tobacco smoke.
Of course he now had the warmest fellowship with God’s sanctified people, and he was not long in inviting those advocates of full salvation, Dr. and Mrs. Palmer, to come and speak in his church.  His former interest in controversy in preachers’ meetings waned.  He no longer cared for entertainment as a part of the program of the church.
In those days there were a number of champions for holiness in the Methodist Episcopal Church, such as Alfred Cookman, J. A. Wood and others.  These held a Camp Meeting at Vineland, New Jersey, which led to the formation of the “National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness,” of which Mr. Inskip was elected the first President, a post which he held for the remainder of his life.  All the business was transacted on their knees.  The only constitution the newly formed Association had was that of its promoters shaking hands with one another as they vowed to be loyal to the message and to one another.
Mr. Inskip became a pliable instrument in God’s hand to go anywhere and to any people who would listen.  Doubtless He took over this servant of His in a new way and gave him a special anointing for the work.  Dr. G. D. Watson, himself a herald of the same message, tells of a burden which had come upon him for some time when he would groan out his desire in prayer that the Lord would send one of His servants to promote the holiness message in the South-eastern section of the United States—his own native area.  Later he was overjoyed to find the answer had come definitely, and that Rev. John Inskip had been led into those parts with the message of a complete Redemption in Christ, with very blessed results.
On his death-bed, Mr. Inskip’s utterances were truly messages from Glory, such as:  “All is well!  Glory!  Hallelujah!”  “I am dwelling on the mountain.”  His final words came when friends were singing, “The Sweet By and By.”  Pressing his wife to him and raising her hands in his, with radiant countenance, he shouted, “Victory!  Triumph!  Triumph!”  He then quietly slipped away and doubtless merged his Hallelujah Chorus with the grander one over there.  This was on March 7, 1884.—E. F. Harvey.

The sinner’s choice is between Heaven and Hell; the Christian’s choice is between Heaven and earth.
What God wants is not our plans, but our lives, that He may work through us.—James H. McConkey.
She has given Me all her living, I will give her all My dying and all My resurrection life.—Charles A. Fox.

The meaning of being a Christian is that in response for the gift of a whole Christ I give my whole self to Him.—Sel.

She has given Me all her living, I will give her all My dying and all My resurrection life.—Charles A. Fox.

The meaning of being a Christian is that in response for the gift of a whole Christ I give my whole self to Him.—Sel.

GOD’S AVAILABLE LIST

Jesus made Himself available to God for His purposes. “Lo, I come to do Thy will,” it is said of Him.  By His life of selfless giving, asking nothing for Himself, He proceeded to demonstrate to a basically selfish world what God, the Father, was like.  In order to perpetuate the continuance of this spirit of selfless devotion, He announced to His disciples, “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you.”  Pentecost dealt with the reluctance in these formerly selfish men, and now, filled with Christ’s Spirit, they continued the role of Christ-like laying down of their lives for others.
Since the days of the primitive Church, God has always had a minority who have dedicated their entire lives to do God’s will, and as they did so, from their inward parts have issued the same stream of rivers of beneficent self-forgetful living.  We shudder to think what this poor old world would have been without such a contribution.
Men and women languished in prison conditions, too horrible for description.  Among those who responded to God’s call to these unfortunate ones, were John Howard and Elizabeth Fry, who brought to these incarcerated ones, God’s message of redeeming love.  The secret of such unusual service is found in their consecration.
John Howard, in the Spring of 1770, in Naples, wrote out a solemn covenant:
“Stop, remember thou art a candidate for eternity . . . O compassionate and divine Redeemer!  save me from the dreadful guilt and power of sin; and accept of my solemn, free, and, I trust, unreserved, full surrender of my soul, my spirit, my dear child, all I own and have, into Thy hands.”
Elizabeth Fry at sixty-two years of age, revealed the source of her constancy of purpose to serve Christ alone:
“Since my heart was touched when seventeen years old, I believe I have never wakened from sleep, in sickness or in health, by day or by night, without my first waking thought being how I might best serve the Lord . . . It has been strongly impressed on me, how very little it matters when we look at the short time we remain here, what we appear to others; and how much too much, we look at the things of this life.  What does it signify, what we are thought of here, so long as we are not found wanting towards our Heavenly Father?  Why should we so much try to keep something back, and not be willing to offer ourselves up to Him, body, soul and spirit, to do with us what may seem best unto Him, and to make us what He would have us to be?  O Lord!  enable me to be more and more singly, simply and purely obedient to Thy service!”
How much we owe to authors, preachers, poets and hymn-writers who, because they yielded their entire being to God, became channels for God’s truth to flow by pen and lip in blessing to all generations!
Matthew Henry, useful minister and commentator wrote:
“Unto Thee, O blessed Jesus, my only Savior and Redeemer, do I make a fresh surrender of my whole self this morning, body, soul, and spirit:  to me to live is Christ, particularly this ensuing year.  All my time, strength and service, I devote to the honor of the Lord Jesus; my studies, and all my ministerial labors, and even my common actions.  It is my earnest expectation and hope that Jesus Christ may be magnified in my body.”
Charles Wesley composed something in the region of 8,000 hymns.  One of them breathes his consecration:

“Lord, in the strength of grace,
With a glad heart and free,
Myself, my residue of days,
I consecrate to Thee.

“Thy ransomed servant, I
Restore to Thee Thine own;
And from this moment live or die
To serve my God alone.”

Francis Ridley Havergal, in a letter to a friend, voices her heart’s desire for others:
“When one is really and utterly ‘all for Jesus,’ then and not till then we find Jesus is all for us, and all in all to us.  Now I want you to be ‘all for Jesus!’  I can’t describe the happiness He puts into any heart that will only give itself up altogether to Him, not wishing to keep one single bit back.  And I want you to have this and to have it now; not to wait till illness or great trouble come, and you feel driven at last to Him.  Jesus says, ‘Come now!’ not, ‘come when everything else has turned bitter.’  And if you come now, and surrender to Him now, you will have the peace now and the gladness now; and I can tell you it is worth having, because I haveit, and so I know it is.”
Oswald Chambers’ books continue to pour off the press by the thousands, and his writings probe and stab wide awake the sleepy, dull generality of Christians.  The explanation is found in an excerpt from his writings:
“You ask a question about the baptism of the Holy Ghost—did I get there all at once, or easily?  No, I did not. Pride and the possession of the high esteem of my Christian friends kept me out for long enough.  But immediately I was willing to sacrifice all and put myself on the Altar, which is Jesus Himself, all was begun and done.
“Holiness is not an attainment at all, it is the gift of God, and the pietistic tendency is the introspection which makes me worship my own earnestness and not take the Lord seriously at all.  It is a pious fraud that suits the natural man immensely.  He makes holy, He sanctifies, He does it all.  All I have to do is to come as a spiritual pauper, not ashamed to beg, to let go of my right to myself and act on Romans 12:1-2.  It is never, ‘Do, do, and you’ll be’ with the Lord, but ‘Be, be, and I will do through you.’  It’s a case of ‘hands up’ and letting go, and then entire reliance on Him.”
Rugged, daring pioneers there have been who, becoming God’s servants, were sent to enter formerly closed doors in unevangelized areas of the world.  Among these were the Calverts who, when told by the captain of the ship on which they were sailing to Fiji, that cannibals would soon write “finis” to their labors, answered, “We died before we came out.”
David Livingstone’s story is a never-ceasing wonder of achievement and endurance, but the secret lies in his personal willingness to sacrifice all for God:
“Let us seek—and with the conviction that we cannot do without it—that all selfishness be extirpated, pride banished, unbelief driven from the mind, every idol dethroned, and everything hostile to holiness and opposed to the divine will crucified; that ‘Holiness to the Lord’ may be engraven on the heart, and evermore characterize our whole conduct.
“This is what we ought to strive after; this is the way to be happy; this is what our Savior loved—entire surrender of the heart.  May He enable us by His Spirit to persevere till we attain it!  All comes from Him, the disposition to ask as well as the blessing itself.”
Titus Coan, missionary to Hawaii, briefly registers the same entire surrender to God:
“Put any burden on me, only sustain me; send me anywhere, only go with me; sever any tie but the one that binds me to Thy service and to Thy heart.”

Lord, I have fallen again—a human clod!
Selfish I was, and heedless to offend;
Stood on my rights.  Thine own child would not send
Away his shreds of nothing for the whole God!
Wretched, to Thee Who savest, low I bend;
Give me the power to let my rag-rights go
In the great wind that from Thy gulf doth blow.

– George MacDonald.

“Present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (Rom. 6:13).
“Ye are not your own . . . For ye are bought with a price:  therefore glorify God in your body” (1Cor. 6:19-20).
“They first gave their own selves to the Lord” (2 Cor. 8:5).
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1).

God is not interested in your ability, but in your availability for Him to take and use.—Living Links.
CREATION LIKE CHRIST
“As he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

Those of us who are God’s children ought to stand in determined reverence before this verse.  It can mean only one thing, and that is that the image and character and holiness of Jesus Christ is ours by the sovereign right of His creation.  Sanctification means that we are taken into a mystical union which language cannot define (cf. 1 John 3:2).  It is Jesus Christ’s holiness that is granted to us, not something pumped up by prayer and obedience and discipline, but something created in us by Jesus Christ.  No wonder the New Testament puts Jesus Christ upon the throne!  No wonder Jesus said that the Holy Ghost would glorify Him!  And no wonder this talk is called “unrealized truths of sanctification!”
We are potentially sons and daughters of God through God’s claim upon us in Christ, but we are only sons and daughters of God in reality through our will.  Do we will, not to imitate Jesus, but to hand ourselves over to God until His claim is realized in us?  Paul says, “We pray you, we passionately entreat you, as though God did beseech you by us, be ye reconciled to God.”  It is one thing to realize in speechless wonder, when the heart is attuned to an impulse of worship, what the claim of God is, and another thing to tell God that we want Him to realize His claim in us.  “My God, I am Thine by creation, I am Jesus Christ’s through His Atonement, and I choose that Thy claim shall be realized in me.”
“Wherefore if any man is in Christ. . .”  “Any man” means ourselves—men of no account.  Our Lord never taught individualism; He taught the value of the individual, a very different thing.  Does Paul mean that I, an ordinary man with no particular education, with ordinary common-place work, surrounded by common-place people, can be made a new creation in Christ Jesus?  He does, because he says “any man,” and you must come in there.  Will you choose to be one of the ordinary common rut, the “any man,” and let God get hold of you?  You are part of the creation of God, then let Jesus Christ make His creation good in you.
Jesus Christ does not make us original characters, He makes our characters replicas of His own; consequently, argues the Spirit of God, when men see us, they will not say, “What wonderful, original, extraordinary characters.”  No, none of that rubbish!  They will say, “How marvelous God must be to take poor pieces of human stuff like those men, and turn them into the image of Jesus Christ!”  “ . . . which things the angels desire to look into.”  We are too free from wonder nowadays, too easy with the Word of God; we do not use it with the breathless amazement Paul does.  Think what sanctification means—Christ in me; made like Christ; as He is, so are we.
—In Our Brilliant Heritage by Oswald Chambers.

CONSECRATED AND TRANSFORMED

By Mark Guy Pearse

Nothing in God’s world is any good until it is given up to that which is above it.
What is the worth of the land, however fruitful, and whatever title we may have to it, unless we can do something with it?  “Of course,” you say.  But why of course?  Underneath that “of course” lies the law of which we speak.  The soil must minister to us, or it is no good—merely waste land.  It must grow its grass or flowers or trees; it must yield us foundation for our buildings, or minerals and metals for our use, or it is of no service, and so no good.
The seed again and all its products—corn, and grass, and fruit, and tree—what should we give for them if we could do nothing with them?  They must yield themselves in turn to the animal life, or else more directly minister to our wants.  In this lies their worth, their good.
And the cattle and sheep, what of all the flocks and all the herds, except as they clothe us, and feed us, and minister to us?
And we, what are we for?  Here lies our worth and our good, in giving ourselves a living sacrifice to God.  This is our service.  Waste and worthless are we except as we give ourselves up to Him Who is above us, discerning and fulfilling His will concerning us, of Whom, and through Whom, and to Whom are all things.
Then comes the second part of this law, completing it—Everything by sacrifice not lost, but turned into higher life.  Very beautiful is this law of transformation.  Listen to the parable of the earth, as it lies far down beneath the blue heaven, or as in the cold night it looks up at the silver stars.  “Here am I,” it mutters, “so far away from Him Who made me . . . How can I ever climb up to Him Who made me?”  And then the poor earth sighs again: “And that is not all—not even the worst of it.  I am only dull soil, without any beauty of form, or richness of color, or sweetness of smell!  All things seem full of loveliness but me.  How can I ever be turned into worth and blessedness?”
And now there comes the seed, and it is hidden in the earth.  “Earth,” whispers the seed, “wilt thou give me thy strength?”
“No, indeed,” replies the earth; “why should I give thee my strength?  It is all I have got, and I will keep it for myself.”
“Then,” saith the seed, “thou shalt be earth, and only earth for ever and ever.  But if thou wilt give me thy strength thou shalt be lifted up into another life.”
So the earth yields and give up its strength to the seed.  And the seed takes hold of it and lifts it up and begins to turn it into a hundred forms of beauty; it rises with wondrous stem; it drinks in sunshine and rain and air, mingling them with the earth’s strength and changing it to toughened branch or dainty leaf, or to rich flowers and ripened fruit.  Then its work is done as it ends in the seed.  And it cries to the earth:  “Spake I not truly?  Thou art not lost, but by sacrifice transformed to higher life, to worth and beauty.”
And man gives himself up to God, to love Him, to learn His will, and do it.  And is transformed—into what?  Ah!  who can tell of that wondrous transformation when it is completed?  We think of the redeemed and glorified, white-robed and pure, untouched by sorrow, unstained by sin, into whose minds there entereth nothing that defileth, in whose heart no unlovely thing can find a lodging-place, who day and night are there before the throne, standing in the very light of God’s own glorious Presence, and serving Him with a perfect service, unwearied, unbroken, amidst the angels that do excel in strength!  Do you ask who are these and whence came they?  These but yesterday were here as we are, earth-stained, commonplace, burdened men and women, tempted and afraid, selfish, sinful; without beauty or worth were they too.  But they gave themselves up to God, and now are they like Him, for they see Him as He is.  By sacrifice not lost, but transformed to higher life.
My simple story is the poor and broken illustration of the law of God’s great kindness that runs through all things.  Here lies the earth, and it says:  “I have got in me some strength.  It belongs to God.  It came down from Him to me by a host of gracious messengers—the seasons, and the sunshine, and the rain.”  Then it whispers to the seed:  “I will pass it on to you, and if you can pass it on further, you will, won’t you?”  Then the seed takes it up, and carries it higher, and it says:  “I have some strength in me.  It belongs to God.  It came down from Him to the earth, and the earth has passed it on to me.”  And the seed whispers to the animal:  “I will pass it on to you, and if you get a chance of passing it on, you will, won’t you?”  And in turn the animal ministers to man, and it says:  “I have some strength in me.  It came down from God, and it belongs to Him.  The earth has passed it on to the seed, and the seed has passed it on to me, and now I pass it on to you.  If you can pass it on further, you will, won’t you?”  And as the man comes in and with a conscious and reasonable service yields himself to God, then do all things flow back again to their Creator.
So man completes the circle.  He is the last link in it all.  Think how all things minister to him—the light, the air, the earth; the growth of tree, and fruit, and flower, the strength and life of things about him.  Think how the ages wait upon him.  How the slow action of centuries has ground the rock to soil, and how the soil has been wrought upon by wind, and rain, and changes of the seasons, till it is fit for the seed.  And how the seed gathers up this vast preparation, and passes it on to man.  All things reach up to him; all things wait upon him:  “Thou hast put all things under his feet.”  If he serves not God, he hinders all things, and diverts them.
If man yields himself to God, then does he stand as the high priest of nature, arrayed in the garments of praise, and consecrates all things to the Creator.  It is a cry taken up and urged by the voice of all things—the sun in the heavens, the air we breathe, the food we eat, the earth we tread upon, the things we handle, all that eye can rest upon, and that ear can listen to, repeat this word, each adding to its reasonableness, each demanding it as a right:  “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice . . . unto God.”

EDITORIAL
THE TRAGEDY OF HE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE

1. K. Chesterton after having once served on a jury later wrote:“Our Civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. When it wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”

Although the editor of a comparatively obscure magazine, I feel that the Message of Victory should lift up its voice and join those who are sounding the alarm concerning seven very learned men who have endeavored by mere human learning to bring forth a verdict on the most vital question in Christendom, a decision for which they are by no means qualified to decide upon—namely the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, the Son of God Who came to give His life a ransom for the world. This all important question can only be discovered and judged by those who have it revealed by Him Who, Jesus said, would guide His disciples into all truth—the Holy Spirit Himself. The Incarnation can only be truly known by revelation. Again we repeat that we must cry out with all who know Jesus to be Divine against the awful charge of seven religious teachers, contained in the recently published book, The Myth of God Incarnate.
Unbelief is undoubtedly the worst of sins according to the appraisal of the New Testament. Jesus Christ Himself, after making that wonderful declaration in John 3:16, continued, “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God, And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil . . . He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:17-19 and 36).
Worldly wisdom has always been the snare to all who have not been open to a Divine revelation. The coming of God incarnate was a great mystery as far as human reasoning was concerned. The marvel of the Incarnation can only be grasped by one who is open to the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that “the world by wisdom, knew not God.” Should we wonder then that men who exalt their learning to a place above the revealed truth of the Word of God, would make the mistake by thinking that the mass of people have to have the Gospel story watered down from its position of majesty and wonder to suit the earthly mind of men who are so earth-bound that they stake their all on the fortunes and possibilities of this world? The composers of the Myth evidently think that if they take out the element of the Divinity of Jesus Christ from the Gospel story, it will become more believable and more palatable. The fact is that by their so-called wisdom they do not recognize God when He is presented in the person of His “only begotten” Son. They “know not God” in Christ, His incarnate Son.
St. Paul also says that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” This undoubtedly means that what appears to this world as the foolishness of God is indeed the true wisdom. The whole truth is that there is a possibility of knowing all the facts relating to our physical existence while at the same time being completely dark as to Divine truths. The case of Saul of Tarsus proved this. Brought up “at the feet of Gamaliel,” he was considered doubtless a very educated man of his day. He believed that Jesus was an impostor. He could well have contributed in the bitterest terms to the publishing to the Hebrew nation a work similar to the book we are now considering. Instead he received what these men need so desperately, a revelation. He had a meeting with the unseen, but oh, so real, Lord Jesus and he became the greatest exponent of the glorious and saving truth that Jesus is the Son of God. He declared, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
Why will men, who must know from history that the Christian religion is one of Divine revelation, come down to fleshly arguments and deny that which Christianity is all about! Without this precious nugget of fact being a reality to us, Christianity becomes one with the comparative religions of the day. To attempt to eliminate the Incarnation from Christianity is to have a solar system without a sun or an ocean without water. It is to take from Christianity its very central idea. It is to forfeit for ourselves and to rob others of the very thing which mankind is blindly groping for in vain. The God-Man and all He purchased is the answer to our every need. Without that we are miserable and hopeless. We used to sing, “The martyrs died believing in Christ, the Son of God.” Why worship in a church called St. Peter’s or St. Stephen’s and deny the secret of their martyrdom and glory?
Why is the Bible the best-selling book for centuries? Do men buy and read it merely for educational purposes? Are they solely interested in Jesus as our example? Far from it. The New Testament is the “book of the generation of Jesus Christ.” Its blessing for humanity is due to the Divinity of Jesus, the Son of God. If it does not proclaim that to a lost and needy world, what does it do? Ten million martyrs in the first three centuries gladly sacrificed all they held dear and finally made the supreme sacrifice, trusting solely and thank God, not in vain, in the atonement of Him, Whom John the Baptist proclaimed as “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.”
It seems superfluous to have to prove that Jesus claimed over and over again to be God incarnate. We are amazed. If the New Testament does not teach that, what does it teach? We all agree that St. John in his Gospel proclaims it and infers it almost constantly. Bible students declare that the central theme of his Gospel is “Jesus, the Son of God.”
Regardless of what these critics say, the Synoptic Gospels leave to no honest man, any question regarding the matter either. Noteworthy is Peter’s confession in Matt. 16:16, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” It is obvious that any who deny that Matthew taught that Jesus claimed Divine Sonship and who deny it themselves are conferring with “flesh and blood” and are not in a relationship to have the truth revealed to their hearts from Heaven.
St. Luke passes on very valuable evidence on this point. He gives the record of the repentance of the dying thief, who requests from the Man on the middle cross, with his dying breath, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” and receives the marvelous promise, “This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” Just previously He had prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Here is two-fold evidence for He claims definitely that God is His Father, and He does what none but the Son of God can do, forgives His murderers. And finally, Mark tells us of the astonishing exclamation of the Roman Centurion when Jesus breathed His last and the veil of the temple was rent and darkness covered the earth, “Truly this man was the Son of God.”
And lastly we would commend anyone with the slightest doubt, to read all the four Gospel accounts of Christ’s trial in the palace of the High Priest. In each of the three Synoptic Gospels, the record teaches that the sentence of death actually came as a result of Jesus admitting that He was God’s Son. In other words Jesus died because He said He was the Son of God!!

THE PATHWAY OF REJECTION

By J. Gregory Mantle

One of my intimate ministerial friends had an experience which has suggested the title of this chapter. His congregation persistently refused to accept his message. He wanted to lead his flock into the green pastures, and beside the still waters, but they were unwilling to be led. His choir, with their ungodly practices, brought things to a crisis.
The position had become so unbearable that he invited the choir to resign, for he felt like one of old, whenever he attempted to preach, that “Satan stood at his right hand to resist him.” The choir not only resigned but persuaded the congregation to desist from taking any part in the singing.
The result was that whatever singing was done had to be done by the preacher, the choir and congregation rejoicing in his discomfiture, and refusing to join. This state of things continued for some time, and quite naturally, my friend was greatly dejected and perplexed at the turn events had taken. He was at his wits’ end when God spoke to him. He was sitting one day on a seat in a park when he saw before him on the ground part of a torn newspaper. That torn paper had a message for him that exactly suited his need. It was this:
“No man is ever fully accepted until he has, first of all, been utterly rejected.”
He needed nothing more. He had been utterly rejected, and his recognition of the fact was the beginning of a most fruitful ministry in another sphere which continues to this day, and proves how fully he had been accepted by God though so utterly rejected by man.
It was so with Dr. A. B. Simpson of New York, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
This is how Dr. Simpson himself describes the second of these crises:
“I look back with unutterable gratitude to the lonely and sorrowful night when, mistaken in many things and imperfect in all, and not knowing but that it would be death in the most literal sense before the morning light, my heart’s first full consecration was made, and with unreserved surrender I first could say:
“Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee,
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou, from hence, my all shalt be.
“Never, perhaps, had my heart known quite such a thrill of joy as when the following Sabbath morning I gave out those lines and sang them with all my heart.”
Dr. Simpson had to learn later, when in response to the call of God he resigned his pastorate, what it really meant to be “destitute, despised, forsaken.” “He surrendered a (then) lucrative salary of $5,000; a position as a leading pastor in the greatest American city; and all claim upon his denomination for assistance in a yet untried work. He was in a great city with no following, no organization, no financial resources, with a large family dependent upon him, and with his most intimate ministerial friends and former associates predicting failure.” So completely was he misunderstood, even by those from whom he expected sympathy, that he once said he often looked down upon the paving stones in the streets for the sympathy that was denied him elsewhere.
The rugged path of utter rejection was trodden not only uncomplainingly but with rejoicing. He knew that though he was brought into the net, and was going through fire and water, it was the divinely appointed way to the wealthy place. He reached the wealthy place at last; and in a sense, beyond his wildest dreams, he found himself fully accepted by God.
What an illustration of the pathway of rejection! Scores of illustrations of this great principle might be given, beginning with Christ, the most illustrious. “He was despised and rejected of men.”
It is the way the Master went;
Should not the servant tread it still?
The story of John Tauler, who, in the fourteenth century was recognized as the greatest preacher of his age, is full of instruction. It was in 1331 that Tauler passed through the great crisis of his life. Had he not known what it was to be utterly rejected, and had he not been willing to drink the cup of humiliation and shame to its last bitter dregs, he would never have known what it was to be fully accepted. The journal of those days is available, having been preserved by one of that select band known as “The Friends of God.”
Tauler had announced that he would preach on the highest degree of perfection attainable in this life. The chapel of the famous Strasburg Cathedral was crowded long before the time of service, for multitudes hung upon the lips of Dr. John Tauler. He preached on the necessity of dying utterly to the world, and to our own will, and of being yielded, what he described as “dying-wise,” into the hands of God.
While he discoursed eloquently along these lines, there was one man in the congregation who knew that the preacher had but an imperfect personal knowledge of the truths on which he dwelt, and that John Tauler was far from dead. This man was Nicholas of Basle, an eminent “Friend of God,” well known in the Bernese Oberland as a saint of God possessed of profound spiritual insight and knowledge.
As he listened he said: “The Master is a very loving, gentle, good-hearted man, but despite his understanding of the Scriptures, he is ignorant of the deep things of God.” After hearing Tauler preach six times Nicholas sought an interview with the preacher.
“Master Tauler,” he said, “you must die!” “Die,” said the popular Strasburg preacher, “what do you mean?” The next day Nicholas came again and said: “John Tauler, you must die to live.” “What do you mean?” said Tauler. “Get alone with God,” said Nicholas, “leave your crowded church, your admiring congregation, your hold on this city. Go aside to your cell, be alone and you will see what I mean.” His plain speaking at first offended Tauler, and his resentment only proved how accurate was the diagnosis at which Nicholas had arrived.
Tauler was a long time coming to the end of himself, but in Nicholas he had a loving and patient teacher. The process of “breaking” was slow and painful, but when God is working for Eternity He takes no account of time, nor does He spare His servants any humiliation or suffering if only they may be made vessels broken and empty, “for the Master’s use made meet.”
Tauler felt himself obliged to obey the advice of his friend. He left his Church, fled from popularity, was accounted crazy by his friends, and, alone with God, fought the greatest of all battles, the battle with that hydra-headed monster, Self.
Assaulted by Satan, despairing of his own heart, overcome with weakness of body, broken-hearted on account of his sins, his wasted time and lost opportunities, he lay in his room weak and stricken down with sorrow. Then John Tauler died, and he heard a voice speaking to him and saying: “Trust in God and be at peace, and know that when He was on earth as a man, He made the sick whom He healed in body, sound also in soul.”
Then John Tauler rose from the dead. When he came to himself, after not knowing how or where he was, he was filled with a new strength and might in all his being, and the things which for a time were dark to him were now bright and clear. The pathway of dying to his reputation, his strength, his wisdom, his zeal and eloquence, had been a long and painful one. He had been treading the rugged road of complete self-abnegation for two whole years, while every one who knew him wondered what had become of him, and what was the reason of his long silence.
Tauler sent for Nicholas, who said when he learned of his friend’s experiences: Now thou art a partaker of the grace of God. Now thou wilt understand the Scriptures, and be able to show thy fellow Christians the way to Eternal life. Now one of thy sermons will bring more fruit than a hundred aforetime.
It was announced that in three days he would preach once more. It was so long since his voice had been heard in the cathedral that a great crowd gathered to hear him. He climbed the high pulpit that he might be the better seen and heard by the throng of people. Then he prayed: “Oh, merciful, eternal God, if it be Thy will, give me so to speak that it may be to the praise and glory of Thy Name, and to the good of this people.”
The people listened in breathless expectation, but instead of a sermon, Tauler began to weep; his sobs became quite audible in the stillness of the Cathedral. At last the people grew restless and impatient and a man spoke out of the crowd and said: “Sir, how long are we to stand here? It is getting late; if you do not mean to preach, let us go home!”
“O my Lord,” entreated the broken-hearted preacher, “if it be Thy Divine will, take this weeping from my eyes, and give me to deliver this sermon to Thy praise and glory. But if not, I take it as a sign that thou judgest I have not yet been enough put to shame. Now fulfill, dear Lord, Thy Divine will to me, Thy poor creature.” But he only wept yet more and more.
Then he said to the amazed congregation: “Dear children, I am sorry from my heart that I have kept you here so long for I cannot speak a word today for weeping; pray God for me, that He may help me, and then I will make amends to you, if God give me grace, another time, as soon as ever I am able.”
Try and picture that scene! The silent weeping preacher; the great expectant crowd come together to hear, and going away to scoff, for the people said: “Now we see that he has become a down-right fool”—Tauler going away from the empty church broken-hearted and humiliated, and creeping back to his friends in the monastery feeling that he had failed so utterly that he would become a laughing stock to the whole city, when the story of his futile attempt to preach was known.
His own brethren forbade him to preach any more, because they said he had disgraced the order with the senseless practices which he had taken up, and which had disordered his brain.
“Be of good cheer, dear Master,” said Nicholas, when he arrived from Basle, “your good Friend has doubtless perceived some specks of pride in you that you have not detected, and therefore it is that you have been put to shame. Do not despise this cross, but count it as a great blessing and favor from God.”
Nicholas further counseled Tauler to be silent before God for five more days, and then ask permission to give a lecture to the monks. Permission was given, and Tauler gave them such a lecture as they had never heard in their lives. They were so deeply stirred by it that they gave him permission to preach in public once more.
So it came to pass that three weeks after his failure he preached again. His text was “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” In a kind of parable, strange and beautiful, he told the congregation of the struggles and conflicts through which he had passed, and of the deep peace into which he had entered.
In the words which he put into the mouth of the Bride we recognize the cry of his own soul:
“Dear Lord and Bridegroom, I here vow and promise Thee that all that You will I also will. Come sickness, come health, come pleasure or pain, sweet or bitter, cold or heat, whatever You will do I will also. I desire altogether to come out from my own will, and to yield a whole and willing obedience unto Thee; only let Thy will be accomplished in me. Thy poor unworthy creature in time and eternity.”
Such was the power of the sermon, that as he spoke the people fell down as if dead, and Tauler, for fear of further consequences, had to bring his sermon to an abrupt conclusion.
He had trodden the pathway of utter rejection by men. He was now to tread the blessed road of full acceptance by God. His sermons, though hard to obtain second-hand, are still eagerly read by those who desire God’s best; and all who read them understand more fully the Master’s words: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone: but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.”
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Rev. J. Gregory Mantle is known for his successful labors at the Central Hall, Deptford, and also as a speaker at the Keswick Convention. He spent the last twelve years of his life in the United States, first as a Baptist pastor and then serving with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, founded by Dr. A. B. Simpson. Having faithfully preached the Gospel for over fifty years, he passed away in March, 1925, at seventy-two years of age. This article is taken from his book, Beyond Humiliation.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

The world’s salvation was not wrought out by the three years in which He went about doing good, without the three hours of darkness in which He hung, stripped and nailed, in uttermost exhaustion of spirit and soul and body, till His heart broke. Little wonder, then, if for us the price of power is weakness.—Lilias Trotter.

DOOMSDAY IMMINENT?

Is Western civilization, as we know it, about to self-destruct? Is the system due to disintegrate?
University of Michigan Professor George E. Mendenhall, a perceptive archaeological and recognized authority on Middle East history, has some disquieting comparisons which imply an affirmative answer.
Interviewed a few months ago by the Detroit Free Press, he summarized some of the findings which he has set forth in his latest book, The Tenth Generation (John Hopkins University Press). His conclusion: modern man has an unfortunate affinity with the distant past. With cyclic regularity, destruction visits approximately the tenth generation of every civilization, frequently wiping out up to 75 per cent of the human population.
I did some Old Testament calculations and found Mendenhall chillingly accurate. The Bible has a span of ten generations between Adam and Noah; the destruction brought by the Flood is a familiar story. The Tower of Babel may have been a “tenth generation” project after the Flood.
From Abraham and the start of the Hebrew race to the end of Israel’s favored status in Egypt was approximately three hundred years, roughly the equivalent of ten generations. From the conquest of Canaan to the genocide described in the final chapters of Judges is a like time span. From David to the desolation of the Northern Kingdom is just under three hundred years; the Southern Kingdom experienced one of the few postponements of judgments, thanks to reform-minded kings.
What characterized the “tenth generation” that made it so susceptible to ruin? Mendenhall mentions eleven factors in his interview with the Detroit Free Press—all with a surprisingly contemporary ring:

1. Rising prosperity
2. The perceptible deterioration of once high technical standards
3. Overpopulation
4. Public breakdown of confidence in the social and political organizations
5. Rejection of thestatus quoin favor of a counter-culture
6. The absence of goals and purpose
7. Increasing lawlessness and violence
8. Elaborate building projects
9. The proliferation of cultic religions
10. A nostalgic longing for “the good old days”
11. A sense of foreboding and impending doom (which invariably came).

“The rising prosperity, technological complexity and increasing population seem to work together to bring about a crucial shift in the social policy values expressed by the state . . . A point is reached where the acquisition and exercise of power by the state or by individuals become more important than the well-being of members of the society on which the state must rest. Power becomes an end in itself. This stage—I call it the ‘deification of power’—is the stage where a disastrous and fatal shift has taken place.”
What, Mendenhall was asked, finally caused the destruction?
“Almost always a combination of the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’—famine, death, war, pestilence . . . Whatever was the particular agent . . . is almost irrelevant. They’re all inter-related, you see. The violence comes either from without or within, or both.”
The desolation that follows borders on anarchy. The dissolution of the social and economic order provokes migrations from the depopulated urban areas to the more secure country-side. What follows is a dark age. Then after several more generations, the cycle begins anew.
Is there ever a reprieve from this seemingly inevitable destruction? the Free Press wanted to know. Mendenhall cited the nation of Judah before the captivity, when reform-minded kings such as Hezekiah and Jehoshaphat postponed the evil day by calling their countrymen to the old ways of righteousness.
“The prophets of Israel had a formula they kept chiming back to the corrupted leaders,” Mendenhall says. “‘Give equal justice to all citizens,’ ‘Have mercy on the widows and orphans,’ ‘Show love to the unfortunate ones.’
“But much more important is the fact that from Amos to Jesus the prophetic tradition understood what modern civilization cannot conceive: that serious problems cannot be solved by the monopoly of force represented in the nation state. The people themselves must change.”
Not simply the Bible records support Dr. Mendenhall’s ten generation thesis. Ancient Persia lasted 250 years; Greece from Alexander to the Roman take-over, 300; Rome, 300. The Renaissance which followed the Dark Ages broke down after 300 years in the Reformation, and the Thirty Years’ War at that time wiped out approximately a third of Europe’s population.
It was about then—in the mid-1600s—that the early English settlers were carving out a new, young empire in North America. Revolution two hundred years ago united a part of that territory into a nation of possibly unparalleled wealth, power and technical advancement.
1650, 1750, 1850, 1950. “In fact,” Mendenhall says, “we may be a little overdue.”
—The Alliance Witness.

THEY KNEW THEIR GOD
By E. F. and L. Harvey
Lessons learned in the School of Christ, as told by:
John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley.
A very able young man once wrote to Mr. Fletcher asking, “Dear Sir, what can I do to be a very useful minister of the Gospel?” The godly divine replied, “If you will get to feel that you are the littlest man in England, then God can use you.”
Writing to Charles Wesley, Fletcher confided: “A few days ago, the Lord gave me two or three lessons on the subject of poverty of spirit, but alas! how have I forgotten them! I saw, I felt, that I was entirely void of wisdom and virtue. I was ashamed of myself, and I could say with a degree of feeling, that I cannot describe, ‘I do nothing, have nothing, am nothing; I crawl in the dust’.”
George Fox, Guide of the Quakers.
When all my hopes in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition,” and, when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.
George Mueller, Man of Faith.
The Lord was pleased to lead me to see a higher standard of devotedness than I had seen before. He led me, in a measure, to see what is my glory in this world, even to be despised, to be poor and mean with Christ . . . I returned to London much better in body. And so to my soul, the change was so great that it was like a second conversion.

1. N. Groves, Missionary to India and brother-in-law to G. Mueller.

Oh, how consoling it is, under an overwhelming sense of powerless insufficiency in one’s work, to know that God has chosen to put the most precious gift in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of man; so that we may glory in our very weakness and ignorance, and natural insufficiency, knowing that the Lord’s strength is made perfect in this very weakness. Dear and blessed Lord, make everyone of us willing to be nothing, that thou mayest in all things be glorified.
Madam Guyon, a Truly Evangelical Roman Catholic.
In an introductory chapter of her autobiography, which she was requested to write, Madam Guyon shares a secret with her readers:
“God does not establish His great works except upon ‘the nothing.’ It seems that He destroys in order to build. He does it so in order that this temple He destines for Himself, built even with much pomp and majesty, but built none the less by the hand of men, should be previously so destroyed that there remains not one stone upon another. It is these frightful ruins which will be used by the Holy Spirit to construct a temple which will not be built by the hand of men, but by His power alone.
“Oh, if you could understand this mystery—so profound it is! and conceive the secrets of God’s conducting, revealed to the little ones, but concealed from the great and wise of the earth.
“It is, then, in dying to all things and in truly losing one’s self as regards them, to pass into God, and to subsist only in Him, that one has some intelligence of the true wisdom.
“God chooses for carrying out His works either converted sinners whose past iniquity serves as counterpoise to the exaltation, or else persons in whom He destroys and overthrows that ‘own’ righteousness, and that temple built by the hand of men, so that there remains not a stone that is not destroyed, because all those works are built only upon quicksand, which is the resting on the created, and in these same works, in place of being founded on the living stone, Jesus Christ. All that He has come to establish, by entering the world, is effected by the overthrow and destruction of the same things He wished to build. He established His church in a manner that seemed to destroy it.
“Oh, if men knew how opposed is the ‘own’ righteousness to the designs of God, we should have an eternal subject of humiliation and of distrust of what at present constitutes our sole support.”
George Bowen, Missionary to India and Editor of Bombay Guardian.
Let us be the meekest of men, and the weakest—we will then be the usefullest and the strongest of Christians.
Edward Payson, American Congregationalist Divine.
Some time since I took up a little work purporting to be the lives of sundry characters as related by themselves. Four of these characters agreed in saying that they never were happy until they had ceased striving to be great men. The remark will strike us when Heaven pleases. It occurred to me at once that most of my sorrows and sufferings were occasioned by an unwillingness to be the nothing which I am, and by consequent struggles to be something. I saw if I would but cease struggling to be something, and consent to be anything or nothing, as God pleased, I might be happy.
You will think it strange that I mention this as a new discovery. In one sense it was not new. I have known it for years. But now I see it in a new light. My heart saw it and consented to it, and I am comparatively happy. My dear brother, if you will give up all desire to be great and feel heartily willing to be nothing, you will be happy too.
Martin Luther, German Reformer.
It’s the nature of God to make something out of nothing; therefore, when anyone is nothing, God may yet make something of him.
Whom God chooses to make wise, He first makes a fool;
Whom He chooses to make strong, He first renders weak.
He delivers to death the man whom He means to quicken;
He depresses to hell whomsoever He intends to call to Heaven.
Catherine Booth, Mother of the Salvation Army.
When God teaches us that we have nothing to trust in, when He makes us realize our own nothingness and utter helplessness, then we will begin to be of some use—and never till then. It is God that worketh in us and by us. The apostle labored all the way through to show and convince everybody that it was God in him, and not of himself at all.
Northcote Deck, Missionary to the Solomon Islands.
Take the Book of Acts of the Apostles. It begins with great expectations, with closed doors, but an open Heaven and the mighty rushing wind and the power of Pentecost. Yes, all things in Heaven and on earth must have seemed possible to the early Church. Yet the Book ends, humanly speaking, in disappointment. No proud palace welcomed the apostles, no earthly kingdom became theirs. To Paul, the greatest among them, the closing chapters of the Book bring merely a “hired house,” a limited liberty, an attendant soldier. His end was in seeming disaster and a chained body. But in the body there was an unchained spirit, which found exultant outlet from time to time in the so-called “prison Epistles,” which are really the liberty Epistles, that ring with the victor’s shout. No, Paul was more than conqueror and he only exchanged that prison for a very abundant entrance into glory.
Charles Inwood, Keswick Speaker and Evangelist.
I have had, and still have, the crushing sense of mental and spiritual unfitness. Do not imagine you will ever feel fit for the work. Do not imagine you will ever be satisfied with the results of your ministry. Do not imagine it will ever be easy to meet the demands of the pulpit. It is these things which make us fall on our knees and groan: “Who is sufficient for these things?” And it is only when we feel thus and cry thus that the Spirit shows us “our sufficiency is of God.” The question is not one of self-sufficiency, but of God-sufficiency; not are we fit, but is He able?
Andrew Bonar, Church of Scotland Minister and Author.
Service for the Master that everybody praises is very dangerous service. Perhaps, in the day the Master returns, the name of one we never heard of in the Church of Christ may be the highest, because he did most, simply for the Master.
David Hill, Methodist Minister and Missionary to China.
I have not much sympathy with the gathering of statistics to make a fair show on such occasions. Human nature is the same as of old, and there was one numbering of the people which boded them ill. Unless the nature be very pure, we are in much danger of glorifying ourselves in this. It is a strange thing that frequently when public mention is made of, and attention directed to any particular member of our Mission—I refer now to native Christians—we have almost invariably had something to grieve over in that person ere long, as though the devil made special assault on those most prominently before the eyes of the Church and the world, being permitted to do so because there has been too much glory given to man and too little to God; too much of self, too little of Christ.
Thomas Walker, C.M.S. Missionary to India.
It is an untold mercy to escape parade in print. I believe that offends God very often and mars the permanence of the work. To work on quietly, and trust God for fruit which shall remain, I feel more and more sure that this is the right way.
We all rejoice to hear of the work in Uganda. But the history of the Tinnevelly Mission makes me dread anything like making too much of a mission field. When we begin to praise ourselves, God allows disaster to come and humble us.
Gerhardt Tersteegen, German Mystic and Evangelist.
Strive to live in this world, as much as thy station and vocation permit, as a pilgrim or a stranger, of whom little is known, heard, or spoken and who likewise desires to know and hear nothing but his God alone, and speaks with none so gladly as with his God. Be afraid, when thou art known and praised; but on the contrary, rejoice, when thou art forgotten and despised; for by this, the road to much danger and distraction is blocked up, and thou gainest so much more time and opportunity to abide in thyself and to walk alone with God.
Lose ourselves in the abyss of His goodness, which has no regard to our utter unworthiness—an unworthiness, which appears like an abyss to me, and which if I did not view it in the light of Divine grace, would make me backward in holding social fellowship with God and His children. But which in this point of view, seems desirable to me, because I find it so serviceable to my humiliation—a frame of mind, which is indispensably requisite, in order truly to be able to approach unto God as we ought. The poorer, the more humble and destitute we are, the more unreservedly, freely and purely can we unite ourselves with God and His children, and the more capable are we of the participation of the Divine favor.
“Christ humbled himself” (Phil. 2:8). We cannot humble ourselves, but we must let ourselves be humbled. Christ humbles us by His guidance of us, and by His Spirit; and thus He makes us acceptable to God, in and through Him. This ought to be a great consolation, even for the most miserable; because they need only to approach as such, in order to receive from God every needful grace and virtue.

1. T. Pierson, Minister and Author.

Only when we have got to the end of self have we got to the beginning of God! Human biographies generally magnify a man’s successes, but when God writes biographies in Scripture, He shows how His saints have learned quite as much from their failures, as in the case of Job. Praise feeds pride, while rebuke helps to humility, and suffering is usually the precursor of a humble spirit.

THE THREE TEMPTATIONS

This study in the life of Christ by Oswald Chambers is even more relevant today. Every sanctified Christian is assailed by the same temptations sooner or later.
“Health and happiness is what is wanted today and Jesus Christ is simply exploited.”

1. The Appeal to Man’s Physical Needs and Desires

“If Thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Matt. 4:3).
Jesus Christ came to be the Savior of the world and King of men; no one could ever have such an understanding of the condition of men or of their needs as He had. Now watch what Satan says—“Put man’s needs first, heal their bodies, give them bread, and they will crown You King. Your chance is symbolized in Your own particular need, satisfy Your own requirements first, and then the needs of every other man.” Was Satan right? Read John 6:15. After He had fed the five thousand the temptation was repeated, but “Jesus therefore perceiving that they were about to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again into the mountain Himself alone.” He would not realize His Kingship of men along that line.
What is the attitude of the Church today? Christ on the throne of God? No, Man on the throne of God! The tendency is to reverse the order of the commandments (see Mark 12:29-31). The temptation which beset our Lord with such fascination and power is the very temptation which is besetting the modern Christian—“Heal bodies, cast out devils, feed the poor, and men will crown You King.” The temptation is more powerful today than ever it has been in the history of the Church, to put men’s needs first, not God; to spell God in the term “humanity”; to make God an etcetera for blessing humanity. If you heal men and give them bread, what do they care about the claims of Jesus Christ? Health and happiness is what is wanted today and Jesus Christ is simply exploited. We who name the Name of Christ, are we beginning to discern what Satan is after? He is trying to fatigue out of us what God has put in, viz., the possibility of being of value to God. Our only safety is to watch our Lord and Savior. “For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted” (Heb. 2:18).
“What is the cunning thing that is rending the Church today? Where it is not socialism, it is supernaturalism—‘Ask God for manifestations to prove you are a child of His.’”

2. The Appeal to Man’s Love for the Spectacular

“If Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down . . .” (Matt. 4:6).
Remember that temptation, literally, is to try the strength of the thing held. Satan did not tempt Jesus to sin, as we think of sin; he knew better. The one thing Satan aims at is that we put ourselves as master instead of God (see Genesis 3:5); and now he comes to the Son of God and says, “You are the King and the Savior of mankind, why not use Your power? Use apparatus, startle people out of their wits and then say, ‘Believe in Me.’” Could Jesus Christ have manifested His mastery over men in that way? Of course He could, but the Son of God as Son of Man is showing what a normal holy man is like. At His Baptism our Lord accepted His vocation to bear away the sin of the world, and in this place of absolute loneliness He is being tested by all the powers that are against God; but He went through the temptation without fatigue.
There are plenty of Christians today who are not appealed to on the “bread” line, but the “signs and wonders” line does appeal to them. What is the cunning thing that is rending the Church today? Where it is not socialism, it is supernaturalism—“Ask God for manifestations to prove you are a child of His.” Satan’s one aim is to thwart God’s purpose, and he can easily do it if he succeeds in making us take this line—“Now that I am baptized with the Holy Ghost, there must be marvelous manifestations so that people will be amazed at what God has done for me.”
Jesus said, “When the Holy Ghost is come, He shall glorify me,” not glorify you. The error of the “signs and wonders” movement is that the eye is fixed not on Jesus, but on our own whiteness, or on the amazing of those around us because of what God has done. Jesus Christ never went on that line, and the unobtrusive kind of life He lived is exactly the type of life the saints are to live. There was no “show business” with the saints. “Thinkest thou that I cannot beseech My Father, and He shall even now send Me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:53). Why did Jesus refuse the supernatural intervention? It was not His Father’s will for Him. That is the only reason. “How then should the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be?” “He was crucified through weakness”—the strongest Being Who ever trod this earth, because He knew what He could do and did not do it. “He saved others, Himself He cannot save.”
“The great cry today is ‘Be broad; accommodate yourself with evil so diplomatically that the line of demarcation is gone.’”

3. The Appeal to Man’s Respect for Political Power

“All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me” (Matt. 4:9).
This is the most subtle temptation of all—“You are the son of God. You are here to fulfill all the promises of God, and You know perfectly well that if you compromise judiciously with the powers of evil, You can easily overcome them and will pull the whole world round to Your flag.” Is Satan right? He certainly is.
The first sign of the dethronement of God is the apparent absence of the devil and the peaceful propaganda that is spread abroad. The great cry today is “Be broad; accommodate yourself with evil so diplomatically that the line of demarcation is gone. Run up the white flag, say to the prince of this world, ‘We have been too puritanical in the past, there has been too clear a division between us, now we will go arm-in-arm.’” Is that the order? Never!
“And the devil said unto Him, To Thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them; for it hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give it” (Luke 4:6). Satan is the prince of this world, and during this dispensation he has power to give authority to those who will yield to him and compromise. We are here to stand true to God, not to attack men. No prophet ever lived by his message; immediately he tries to, he must accommodate his message to the standards of the people. The messenger of God has to stand where Jesus Christ stood, steadfast in obedience to God first.
One of the most curious phases today is that people are expecting the devil to do things. Let us keep our eyes on God, and remember that behind the devil is God, and that the Son of God has bruised Satan’s head.
There is a wonderful symbolism about the place of the crucifixion; Jesus was crucified at “a place called Golgotha, that is to say, The place of a skull.” That is where He has always been put to shame, in the thinking part of man, and only when the thinking part of a man is swayed by the Holy Ghost will he find the answer to every one of the temptations that Satan brings. The temptation to the first Adam was to ignore the supremacy of God over the individual, to make man his own god. What was it Satan tried to make the last Adam do? To do God’s will according to His own discernment—“You are the Son of God, assert Your prerogative of Sonship.”
Jesus was led into the wilderness to see whether what He held in His Person, viz. His unique Saviorhood and His unspotted sanctity, would stand the test. The first Adam did not stand the strain for very long; but the last Adam did not begin to give way under the strain. Adam was innocent, not holy; that is, he had no wrong disposition in him, yet he was tempted. Jesus was holy, yet He was tempted. It was impossible to tempt Jesus with evil. The first obedience of Jesus was not to the needs of man but to the will of His Father, and at the heart of every one of our Lord’s answers is this—“I came to do God’s work in His way, not in My own way, though I am the Son of God.”
When we are sanctified we get our first introduction into what God calls temptation, viz. the temptation of His Son. We imagine that when we are sanctified we are delivered from temptation; we are not, we are loosened into it; we are not free enough before to be tempted. Immediately we are sanctified, we are free, and all these subtleties begin to work. God does not shield us from any requirements of a full-grown man or woman, because His aim is to bring many “sons to glory”; not emotional, hysterical people, but men and women who can withstand and overcome and manifest not only innocence, but holiness. We cannot be innocent in the sense that the first Adam was until we are re-made by regeneration; and we cannot be holy in the sense that the last Adam was holy until we are made one with Him; then the same temptations that betook our Lord will betake us when we have become His brethren (Heb. 2:11).
Think of the miserable little “struts” we exhibit—“I must insist on my rights.” Then take them! But if you are a saint, you have a glorious opportunity of following the example of Jesus and being strong enough to decline to exercise your rights. An infallible sign of error spiritually is when all you can say about a man or woman of God is that they are so sweet, so beautiful, so gentle; they have never been true to the Lord. If the Holy Ghost is indwelling a man or woman, no matter how sweet, how beautiful, how Christ-like they are, the lasting thought you go away with is—What a wonderful Being the Lord Jesus Christ is.
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Every temptation of the devil is full of the most amazing wisdom and the understanding of every problem that ever stretched before men’s view. Satan’s kingdom is based on wisdom, along the lines he advocates lies success, and men recognize this. Jesus Christ is not on the line of success but on the spiritual line, the holy, practical line and no other. If men and women do not continue to go with Jesus, they will begin to teach what undermines the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
—From the book Bringing Sons Unto Glory.

FULL OR EMPTY?

By Lillian Harvey

“I went out full; and the Lord hath brought me home again empty” (Ruth 1:21).
“Is this Naomi?” the inhabitants of Bethlehem asked as they crowded around the widow accompanied by her daughter-in-law, as they arrived after their journey from Moab after more than ten years of absence. “Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full; and the Lord hath brought me home again empty.”
Although every human life is a separate history, yet there are salient features which occur again and again in the story of human lives. We find the same outstanding features in the parable of the Prodigal Son as told by Jesus in the New Testament, and many of us, upon surveying the passing events in our own journey through life, likewise recognize the same pattern.
God and I
There are only two major actors in the drama of life: I and the Lord. Friends and relatives might seek to influence our destiny, but ultimately it is only “I” who determines the course of action. “I went out,” confesses Naomi. Her husband might have been either for or against such an adventure into forbidden Moab. Famine was the pressing providence which doubtless unnerved Naomi as she considered with fear the effects famine might have upon the three males in her immediate circle. Looking back, however, she recognizes just herself and the Lord. Repentant, she pinned the guilt entirely upon herself—not circumstances nor people.
The contest is always between God’s will and mine. We allow God His sovereign rights or we take affairs into our own hands and do the initiating. “Not I, but Christ,” was the way Paul summed it all up. “Not my will but thine be done,” was the noble response of our Savior to His Father’s purpose.
The prodigal may have irked under his older brother’s self-righteousness or his father’s strict discipline, but when he arrived at the end of his journey of self-will he blamed only one person. “I will say, I have sinned.”
Went Out and Brought Home Again
Now having looked at the two actors, let us notice what they did. As a sentence must have a subject, so it too must have a verb denoting action. We act. We either go out or allow the Lord to handle our lives so that He does the initiating. He leads; He guides. “They that are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Even faithful, usually obedient Abraham, had in time of famine gone down into Egypt with dire consequences.
Universal discontent with home has been taken by many as just a sign of adulthood or growing up. Its narrow circle chafes us. We long for wider horizons. Distant pastures look greener. Home—that home of the soul—that center of our being where God was meant to abide and reign, if not fully God-possessed will always be haunted by some elysian dream of bewildering success in order to lure us away. So we feverishly initiate without consulting God’s Divine purpose and plan, having little faith in His Divine ability to completely fill us with all His Divine fullness.
Elijah found himself in similar circumstances of famine. Had he gone out to some more favored spot of his own choosing instead of waiting for instructions, he would have missed the providing God at the brook with the ravens, or the widow baking cakes from a never-failing barrel of meal and an ever-full pot of oil. What stories of God’s great care are left on record by souls who waited upon God; what stories of His rich providing we have missed when we have gone out pressed into action by our fears or ambitions!
Naomi went out. She went into Moab, the place where idols and false gods were served. The simple faith of her childhood was exchanged for a more sophisticated, intellectual rationalizing. It is our loving, faithful, persevering God Who always seeks to bring us back home again. “God brought me home again empty.” Through the maze of circumstances and providences which seemed like cruel fate, God had eventually called her back home.
Never, never, must we think of any tragedy in our lives as mere punishment. The greatest tragedy is to miss the purpose of God in our lives. God could not be loving and permit us to miss the highest possible fulfillment of His plan for us. So, He permits bereavement, blasted hopes, blighted plans or it may be that we taste the insipidness of the fame or honor we attained and paid such a price to achieve. God, our Father, ever seeks to bring us back home again. Oh, the mercy and love of God Who takes such pains with His children!
Full and Empty
These two adjectives explain the two stages of Naomi’s venture into Moab and her return to Bethlehem. “I went out full.” Don’t we always leave home full—full of hope, full of ambition, full of faith in our own prowess? Even in the religious life, after the new birth, we sense the new currents of a Divine life pulsating through our being and we go out full of high hopes to achieve great things for God. We do not wait for His guidance. We feel any type of service for humanity worthwhile. We go out full.
Naomi’s future was exceedingly bright as she journeyed into Moab with her stalwart husband and their two sons to carry on the line of Elimelech. The pride and joy of a Jewish maiden lay in her marriage and the hope that she might bring forth a child who should be in the royal line which would produce the Messiah. The marriage of her two sons to two Moabitish women, although contrary to God’s law, resulted. In a far country of our own choosing, it is easy to break God’s commandments. All three males died, leaving Naomi a disconsolate widow, hope gone and empty of future promise. She could only see promise if she married again and brought forth sons for these two young widows, her daughters-in-law, to marry!
“The Lord brought me home again empty.” As soon as Naomi pointed her footsteps homeward, things began to happen although doubtless she could not discern the turn of events. Ruth’s sheer devotion to Naomi’s God and land are unmatched. Her consecration vows are the subject for sermonizing to this day.
Even Naomi’s apparent bungling, God used to bring about His purposes. In His wisdom He empties us of our own proud strength. He must strike us as He did Jacob in our strongest part so that we ever afterwards limp Heaven-ward. He could not be loving and allow us to miss the grand ends for which He created us—life as an experiment with God as Director and Partner. How God must feel as He views the low aims, the material rat-race for riches which we can’t take with us and that shut out the accruing of the unsearchable riches of Christ! He must strike our fondest hopes that we might experience His supernatural giving.
Back home again, things continued to happen. Ruth happens on the field of her rich kinsman. Boaz is impressed by the young Moabitish widow and ensures that she does not go back empty to her mother-in-law. He orders “handfuls of purpose” to be dropped by the harvesters. Chastened by suffering, mellowed by bereavement, Naomi now counsels her restless daughter-in-law not to act precipitately, “Sit still, my daughter.” She knows the kinsman will do something. Her former rash movements, induced by worry and unbelief, are slowed down to harmonize with God’s eternal working.
As Ruth obeys instructions, she finds the rich kinsman not only her husband but her redeemer as well. Through her union with him she produces a son of the royal line—the generation of Jesus Christ. We too, in awaiting Divine instructions, can be likewise united to our Maker, our Husband. As we make His atoning sacrifice an offering for our sin, He too sees His seed. He prolongs His day and the pleasure of the Lord prospers in His hand (Isa. 53:10).
There is a beautiful summing up of Naomi’s life by the women of her own city:
“Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age: for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him.”
We leave Naomi pictured in the Book of Ruth with the child laid in her bosom and nursing it. Her emptiness has been filled out of Divine fullness.
However far from home; however empty and disillusioned we have been, we have but to turn our footsteps homeward again and God will in His own way fulfill in us His eternal purposes. “I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty.”
My Ships Are All Broken
My ships are all broken, the ships I had planned
To bring me great riches from many a land.
They’re battered and broken, the ships I had built,
And now on the shore they lie covered with silt.
My ships are all broken. I built them with pride,
And launched them with hopes that they’d sail with the tide;
But ere they set out for a faraway shore,
On the rocks they were dashed, and now they’re no more.
My ships are all broken. God stretched forth His hand,
And now they lie shattered, all covered with sand;
He smote them in judgment in order to show
His love will not let me in folly to go.
My ships are all broken. And, oh, can I sing!
For had they survived, had not gold been my king?
But now I am free from the chain of my greed;
I trust in the Lord to supply every need.
My ships are all broken. There’s no need to sigh,
No reason to murmur or moan or to cry;
For, when God sends His storm to sink my fond fleet,
Then let me submit and lie down at His feet.
My ships are all broken. I look not behind
But upwards to Heaven my treasure to find;
For there in the glory are riches of grace,
And I want from now on to see the King’s face.
—Unknown.
GIVE A BOOK

The following quotation by Victor Hugo, the renowned French author, clearly displays the potent influence of the ministry of the printed page on mankind:
“The multiplication of readers is the multiplication of loaves. On the day when Christ created that symbol He caught a glimpse of printing. His miracle is this marvel. Here is a book; with it I will feed five thousand souls, a hundred thousand souls, a million souls—all humanity. In the action of Christ bringing forth the loaves, there is Gutenburg bringing forth books. One sower heralds the other.”
Wesley on the Value of Reading
John Wesley, founder of Methodism, placed great emphasis on the value of literature as a means of edifying the Church. As Christ gave the multiplied loaves to the disciples to distribute to the multitude, so Wesley gave literature to his itinerant preachers to spread among the converts.
“See that every society is supplied with books, some of which ought to be in every household,” he said to his itinerants. And to one itinerant preacher he wrote, “It cannot be that people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people. A people who talk much will know little. Press this upon them with your might; and you will soon see the fruit of your labors.”
Bishop Hannington Converted Through a Book
What an influence one book can have on the conversion of an individual! “Do you remember what was the immediate agent in Bishop Hannington’s conversion? Someone sent him a little book. Hannington determined to read every word of it, so he began with the preface. He became impressed with the notion that the book was unscholarly. ‘I therefore threw the book away, and refused to read it.’
“Some time after he was leaving Exeter for St. Petherwyn and he spied the old book. He knew his friend would ask him if he had read it. ‘I suppose I must read through it,’ and so he stuffed it in his portmanteau. ‘At Petherwyn, I took the book out, and read the first chapter. I disliked it so much that I determined never to touch it again. I rather think I flung it across the room. So back into my portmanteau it went and remained until my visit to Hurst, when I again saw it and thought I might as well read it so as to be able to tell the sender about it. So once more I took the old thing and read straight on for a chapter or so until at last I came upon that, “Do you feel your sins forgiven?” and by means of this my eyes were opened. I was in bed at the time of reading. I sprang out of bed, and leaped about the room rejoicing and praising God that Jesus died for me. From that day to this I have lived under the shadow of His Wings on the assurance of faith that I am His and He is mine.’”—Submitted by William Webster from Biblical Illustrator.
Converted through the influence of a book Hannington later went to Africa as a missionary and at the age of thirty-eight years laid down his life as a martyr in Uganda.
—Compiled by David Moore.
Spiritual Literature Challenge
We of the Message of Victory Evangelism are feeling more deeply as the months go by, that the need of truly spiritual literature is very great today.
The terrible inroads made by pornographic books and magazines, the appeal of the occult, the avalanche of books and television plays featuring violence—these, and an ever-increasing landslide of all that would sully and pervert the mind, make the need of godly literature great indeed. Oh, that we Christians can by prayer and witness persuade people to read!
The M.O.V.E. Press has endeavored to publish literature meeting the needs of the hour. It is only this great demand that furnishes the answer as to why, under difficulties of many kinds, we continue to issue the Message of Victory—Gospel and Christian editions.
We have had slurs cast upon the production of biographies, sketches, and compilations of quotations of godly men and women of the past. But we affirm that the Bible is composed of biographies and quotations of men of God, passed on from one generation to another. Jesus, Peter, Paul and others constantly rehearsed and quoted from the Old Testament. Where can we find a more striking example than in the eleventh of Hebrews?
Returning to the comparison of the distribution of the loaves to the multitude, we are assured that true believers can fill a vital role in spreading the printed page to hungry men and women. Why not spiritualize your Christmas giving!—Editor.