Aaron’s Rod That Budded – Christian Victory Message Oct-Nov-1977

First of all, before Aaron could bring his rod to Moses, it had to be cut off from its original source of life.  Similarly, we have to be cut off from our natural life—so completely severed from every source from which we have formerly received life that there is no more hope or expectation of fruit or success from ourselves.  If Aaron’s rod had remained as a branch on the almond tree from which it was cut, it would no doubt eventually have yielded its fruit naturally and in due season.  But we have to recognize that the natural development, through life, of our talents, our wisdom, our strength, by our abilities to work hard, to persevere, to be faithful, to practice skills, etc., will never bring forth spiritual results.  We must come instead to the Cross with all our old nature—“the flesh”—to be cut off from its natural source of life.  Then we appear as dry and unpromising as dried-up branches broken off from their trees!
This was how Watchman Nee appeared to his former college professor who had once thought him to be a very promising young student.  In his book, The Normal Christian Life, he tells of his meeting with the teacher:
“One day I was walking along the street with a stick, very weak and in broken health, and I met one of my old college professors.  He took me into a teashop where we sat down.  He looked at me from head to foot and from foot to head and then he said:  ‘Now look here; during your college days we thought a good deal of you, and we had hopes that you would achieve something great.  Do you mean to tell me this is what you are? . . . Are you still in this condition, with no success, no progress, nothing to show?’”
God was taking Watchman Nee through the process that leads on to Christian fruitfulness; as a young man he had been cut off from the prospect of a successful career to do God’s work.  The college professor, however, had failed to see God’s purposes for future fruitfulness in the preparation of this young life.
Next, the twelve rods, each representing a tribe of Israel, had to be taken by Moses and laid up “in the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony.”  There they were to be set aside for a specified period—a whole night—of inactivity, of seeming purposelessness, of absolute darkness, of no apparent blessing, and of no evident usefulness.  This signifies that Christians who would eventually bring forth fruit must first endure what someone had called, “The Dark Night of the Soul.”  Only God knows how long that period will be for each individual, but what is sure is that there will be a “dark night” in which friends and even some fellow-Christians will wonder at the evident lack of outward activity and success from our lives.
But, we must remain where we have been placed by God’s loving hand, for it is a special place.  And, if we wait, we will find that God will meet with us there.  The place where the rods were laid, we are told, was God’s appointed meeting place; the place where God met with man and man met with God.  In Exodus 25:22, we read God’s promise regarding that particular place “before the testimony” where Moses placed the rods:  “And I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony.”
How many are able to testify that the dark places have been wonderful places to them!  In the darkness they have found that God has met with them.  Jonah found himself inside a “great fish.”  What darker place could God have prepared for him?  But God met Jonah in the darkness and delivered him.  The Philippian prison was very dark, at midnight, for Paul and Silas but, praise God, God met with them there and set their hearts a-singing!  There are sure to appear the buds, blossom and fruit, after the long, dark night, if God Himself meets with us and imparts His own resurrection power and life.
But notice, all the rods cut off from their old life did not receive the new; only Aaron’s rod budded.  The other rods dried up and died for they did not receive God’s life.  Being cut off from our old lives is not enough; we must also receive life from God or we remain as useless and as dead as old, dry, lifeless branches.
If we seek Him, God will show us how to be cut off from our old natural habits and life, the Adamic and sinful nature.  He will help us to remain steadfast through the night of darkness until He meets with us and imparts His “new creation” life to us.  Filled with His resurrection life, we will bring forth miraculously (like Aaron’s rod which, overnight, produced buds, blossom and fruit) the evidences of that spiritual life within us.  Everyone will know that God has done it, that He is alive and still working!

>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.

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

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.