Christian Article on Practical Satisfaction | Christian Message

And the Lord said, “Dost thou love thy neighbor as thyself?”
I answered, “I do, Lord.”
The Lord said, “Very well; and now, Jacob, prove thy word in thy life.”  I went to my house in a very happy frame, singing hymns.
A week after this I took down a work on military science, and was reading, having a great ambition for martial fame.  The Lord said, “Jacob, remember thy word.”  I saw my ambition was self; I dropped the book, and never took it up again.
I had made an arrangement to join a lodge of Masons, was on my way riding fast, when the Lord said, “Jacob, remember thy word.”  I saw that my desire to be a Mason was self; I turned and rode home.
I had coveted two colts which I knew would become horses of great value.  They were rough and lean, and the owner, not knowing their value, would sell them low.  I was on my way to buy them.  The Lord said, “Jacob, remember thy word.”  I saw I was not loving my neighbor as myself; I went on, and said, “Peter, keep your colts; they will make the most valuable horses among all I know.”
Peter said, “I did not think them valuable; but I believe you, for you and your brother know more about horses than any men I ever saw; I would give a thousand dollars for your knowledge.  But now, Mr. Schoonerhoven, the fact is, I must sell them to save my house and land, which is mortgaged.”
“I will lend you the money,” I said, “to save your house; keep your colts.”  He did keep them, and finally sold them for five hundred dollars.
A man came to me to buy some lots.  I was about to take the price he offered, when the Lord said, “Jacob, remember thy word.”
I said, “Mr. Broderick, I cannot in conscience sell you those lots; that part of the city will fail in a few years.”  It did fail, and I turned those lots into a farm.
One morning I was awakened by the voice of the Lord, “Jacob, arise and be sanctified.  Remember thy word.”  I arose, and coming from my lodging room I met a committee of three, informing me that for the part which I took in an anti-slavery meeting I must recant or come to trial.  I remembered my word, and stood my trial, and was excluded.  To be separated from the church of my early choice tore my heart.  The Lord said, “Jacob, lovest thou Me more than these?”
I answered, “Yea, Lord, I love Thee more than all.”  The cause of temperance long before cost me a similar trial.
I had from early life set apart all of my income, above the plain support of my family, for charity, and with much prayer sought for the most needy.  I had passed a day under the clear impression that a sore trial was coming.  At evening I stopped in my barn and cried, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.”
“Jacob, art thou ready to be sanctified in the loss of all?”
I said, “Yea, Lord, take all.  Thou gavest; and if Thou takest away, blessed be Thy Name.”
I answered a rap by stepping to the door.  Three fugitive slaves, a mother and two daughters, were there.  The mother mournfully said, “Will you send us back?”
And the Lord said, “Jacob, dost thou obey My laws or the laws of man?”
I answered, “I will obey Thy laws, Lord.”
“Come in,” I said.  I landed them in Canada.  I was sent to jail, and lost all:  house, land, herd and flock.  I have gathered a little by hard work in old age.  This little cottage is mine, with a few acres of land.  My God is reconciled, my peace is like a river, and my treasure in heaven.—Christian Harvester,  in The King’s Highway, 1880.

EDITORIAL
GOOD-BYE TO OUR READERS

We naturally sense an air of sadness in issuing this, the last copy of the Message of Victory, and yet our conviction is that this must be so.  For over forty years we have labored in fasting and prayer over each issue.  According to our light, we can say with St. Paul, “We have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God.”  Being imperfect in judgment, knowledge and ability, we realize that there could have been more effective and eloquent ways of presenting that glorious holiness message.  As the years have progressed and we have become more mature, pointed and pungent, we have felt an increased sense of Spirit-accompaniment.
We especially wish to thank those readers who through the years have prayed, encouraged and given sacrificially when the pinch was felt most acutely.  We also appreciate those distributors who have faithfully used the printed page in door-to-door and public house evangelism.  How can we voice our deep, heart-felt thanks?
There are two reasons for our discontinuing the Message of Victory.  1. The rising costs of both postage and printing make a subscription list most expensive.  2. As we grow older and have retired from organizational duties, we must husband our remaining strength to give out the holiness message in a more permanent book form.  We have also felt with our views on “The Body of Christ” as His true Church, that we could not continue to be a mouthpiece for any one group.
A great evangelist, used of God, came to the conclusion that if he would lift his listeners to a higher standard of Christian life, he must first demolish their false conceptions.  Man has displaced the Holy Spirit, doing His work and confusing the entire religious set-up.  We have endeavored to list five evils which have arisen as a result of this substitution.  In this issue we have had room to describe only three of these:  Modern Evangelism, Ecumenicalism and Materialistic Christianity.
We have prepared further articles on the other two which are, False Holiness and Occultism.  Under False Holiness we have treated the subject by handling the two great delusions:  a logical acceptance of the doctrine rather than a baptism with fire which purifies the heart and energizes the will; a more widespread error found in charismatic groups where gifts are taken as the evidence rather than purity of heart.
In the occult we see how, because ministers and theologians have ruled out miracles and the supernatural, man in his quest to satisfy that spirit-nature has turned instead to the powers of darkness and of demons, rather than to a HOLY Spirit.  We intend to expose in booklet form the truth about these substitutes.
Both the M.O.V.E. and ourselves feel challenged to get out more among people to spread holiness literature.  If you feel so led to help spread the message and wish to be notified regarding future publications, write either to M.O.V.E. or to the Harveys.  We are laboring in conjunction with one another regarding literature out-reach.  May we ask you to remember us in your prayers that we may be kept in the way and blessed with souls being born again and sanctified wholly.—Edwin and Lillian Harvey.

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Aware of our inability, we take up our pen to add this final editorial note for our readers.  In the October/December issue for last year, 1979, Mr. and Mrs. Harvey wrote how they felt guided to tender their resignation as editors of the Message of Victory.  The matter was taken up at the Board of Trustees’ annual meeting and also at a specially convened meeting of the workers, a week later.  Since then prayerful consideration has been given to the future of the magazine, but the M.O.V.E. workers have not felt led to continue its publication.
We are sure every reader will agree that during its present editorship, the Message of Victory has truly been a voice for Scriptural holiness.  We could not consider anything that would let the paper sink to a lower tone spiritually.  None of us full-time workers felt capable to continue the editing ourselves.  We knew of few among our acquaintances who could take over such a task and maintain the vital standard.  And no-one that was approached felt God’s clear guidance to undertake it.
We realize that many of you will feel disappointed at this decision, and will greatly miss the spiritual stimulus of the magazine coming regularly to your home.  But we understand that Mr. and Mrs. Harvey hope from time to time, as God leads, to issue booklets which will embrace similar stirring truths to those that have appeared in the magazine.  We would encourage our readers to let us know if they are interested in obtaining these, as available.
And now, ours is a very difficult task to pay adequate tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Harvey for their untiring labors as editors of this periodical.  “For what thanks can we render to God . . . for you?” (1 Thess. 3:9).  As workers, we have witnessed the burden that they have carried.  Each issue, indeed each page, has been “born” in prayer as they insisted on an inner witness to having God’s message for that particular issue.  This has been the secret of the power and blessing that you have known through this paper, and it has involved cost and sacrifice.  Regardless of other evangelistic commitments, the magazine was prayerfully prepared at the appointed time.  Often the pressure of the burden was almost too much, but they faithfully carried on, many times upheld by your prayers and encouragements.
Finally, may we solicit your prayers for our retiring editors as they seek to carry out God’s vision of laboring for the building up, not of a visible organization, but of the true Body of Christ.  And now, we “commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified” (Acts 20:32).—M.O.V.E. Workers.

MODERN EVANGELISM

By Mr. and Mrs. E. F. Harvey

God’s method for peopling His spiritual kingdom was via the new birth which added true sons and daughters to the family of God.  Modern evangelism has largely replaced Spirit-operated soul-saving by requiring only a mental assent to a fundamental theory or formula which results in a mental change of mind rather than a revolutionary change of heart and life.
Because an evangelist is fundamentally sound, a man of integrity, skill and knowledge of the Word, people are being hoodwinked into accepting a formula rather than a mighty creative act of God.
Only the Third Person of the blessed Trinity can, through the evangelist, convict of sin, produce sincere repentance, inspire a living faith which brings into operation the mighty power of God enabling children of Adam to become sons and daughters of the eternal God.  Because this entire process has been begun by the Holy Ghost, it is sealed by a Divine witness to that re-birth.  “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16).  It was insisting on this witness of the Spirit that safeguarded the revival under the Wesleys from degenerating into human evangelism, comparable to that which we have on our hands today and which is so futile in the production of saints.
There are two ways to test modern evangelism.  Does it produce the opposition and hatred of hell?  If men are to be translated from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God, the evangelist or worker will have to skirt the very flames of hell to grasp men and pull them out of the devil’s clutches.  If only one or two are truly born again, all hell is moved in rage against that person instrumental in such a birth.  If Paul is to establish churches, he faces stoning, shipwrecks, mobs.  He must escape out of the hands of his religious enemies again and again.  The worker must be content to be considered as the scum and refuse of earth, and have religious persons circulate stories detrimental to his character.  When the sect is spoken against everywhere, it is then that the Lord is daily adding persons to His true church.
The counseling room will bear some resemblance to the labor ward of a hospital.  Souls are being born into a new realm.  There are moments of anxiety lest the spiritual pregnancy end in fatality.  Groans and cries of the distressed and convicted sinners are seldom heard any more.  Men and women, prostrate under the awful sense of their heinous sin, are seldom seen.  Instead we have decorous or sometimes even frivolous walking forward to make a very respectable commitment of life to God.
Secondly, watch the methods of counseling.  Is the Holy Ghost in command?  Is each soul being dealt with by a variety of methods.  God, Who loves variety and has shown it in all of nature and even in the human physical realm, will not allow modern evangelism to share with Him in the supernatural if it uses the counseling methods so in vogue today in large campaigns.
To imagine that mere man can take a group of counselors whose religious experiences are sometimes very shallow and, by briefing them for a short time, give them formulae for leading men and women to that transforming grace of God, is unthinkable.  Oh, how we revolt at the sight of this organized, streamlined mass producing an assembly line of spiritually still-born souls, confused souls, deluded souls!  The Church has been deluged with a worldly, superficial, carnal element who refuse sound doctrine and who want to be entertained with something akin to the world’s form of amusements and pleasure.  Of course, an epilogue at the end must be added just to give a religious flavor.  Oh, my God, when will people wake up to the damage being wrought?  Will the Church ever be able to right itself from such a departure from the New Testament methods?
In closing this subject we would like to quote Oswald Chambers in his book, Workmen of God for he has passed judgment on the dangers of human counseling methods in words so forceful that we could not improve upon them.
“I think that any of you who have worked for God know this, that immediately you get into the way of using certain verses of Scripture and applying them to those who are seeking new birth, and certain other verses to those seeking sanctification, you will find suddenly that God’s Spirit will depart from you and He will not use those verses in your hands any more.  The reason is this, that immediately we get wedded to a short-cut in dealing with souls, God leaves us alone.
“The first thing I want to lay down for the worker (I am talking about one who really is born again of the Spirit of God and has been entirely sanctified) is that he or she must rely on the Holy Spirit to direct them as to what to say in the case of every soul that comes.  Do not rely on your memory, do not remember how you dealt with cases in the past, but recognize and rely on the Holy Spirit that He will bring to your remembrance the particular verse for you to apply at this time.  You will find over and over again that God will bring confusion to your methods and will make you apply a text to sanctification which you in your system have said can only be applied to new birth; and He will make you apply a text which you have said can only apply to sanctification, to something else, and you will make incessant blunders in work for God if you are not careful and watchful and heedful of the guidance of the Holy Spirit and of His bringing the Word of God to your remembrance.  Remember, then, that the worker who is rightly related to God must ever rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance in each individual case.
“Then I want to apply Moses’ statement:  ‘The cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me.’  Do you know how to bring your cases to God?  We all know how to bring them to one another and how to talk to Christian workers about dealing with souls, but just as there are quack doctors in the medical profession, so there is the same thing in the spiritual domain.  Beware of anything that does not fling you straight back in reliance on the Holy Spirit as the most practical factor you know in bringing to your remembrance the Word of God and how to apply it.
“There are two kinds of facts the worker must be amongst—he must go to school among human souls.  I mean we must keep ourselves in touch, not with theories, but with people, and never get out of touch with human beings, if we are going to use the Word of God skillfully amongst them, and if the Holy Spirit is to apply the Word of God through us as workmen needing not to be ashamed.  Live among your human facts, and you will find how continually God stirs up your nest.  If you are a worker, He will constantly surround you with different kinds of people, with different difficulties, and He will constantly put you to school amongst those facts.  He will keep you in contact with human stuff, and human stuff is very sordid; in fact, human stuff is made of just the same stuff as you and I are made of; do not shut yourself away from it.  Jesus prayed, ‘I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.’
“A remarkable thing about this Book of God is that for every type of human being we come across there is a distinct, clear line laid down here as to the way to apply God’s truth to it.  The stupid soul, the stubborn soul, the soul that is mentally diseased, the soul that is convicted of sin, the soul with the twisted mind, the sensual soul—everyone of the facts that you meet in your daily walk and business has its counterpart here, and God has a word and a revelation fact with regard to every life you come across.
“I know it is customary to ridicule certain ways in which some people say God guides them, but I am very chary about ridiculing any methods.  For example, it is easy to ridicule this kind of method:  ‘Lord, direct me to a word; I am just going to shut my eyes and open the Book and put my finger on a passage.’  I say it is easy to ridicule it, yet it is absurd to say that God has not led people in that way; He has.  Why I mention these facts is to knock certain theories to pieces.  You cannot tie God down to a particular line.  You will find that God does use the most extraordinary methods people adopt; only do not take anyone else’s way, get to know how God deals with you, and how He deals with others through you in the most practical way.”

THE DOOM OF THE SOFT
1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Paul is here referring to people given to soft, easy and luxurious living, the people who refuse to endure hardship for the Gospel’s sake, and to bear a cross.  Of these people the apostle says this terrible thing, “The soft shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
The kingdom of God represents here that inheritance incorruptible and undefiled which fadeth not away, which is reserved for those who love and serve the Lord.
A man must not imagine that he can really believe in Christ and go on living as he likes.  This is where some of the Corinthian Christians went wrong.  They professed to believe in Christ but their morals were those of the world.  So in this chapter Paul uses great plainness of speech with them.
He catalogues a list of sins and tells them, plainly, that those guilty of such sins bar themselves from the kingdom of God.  They may profess some sort of belief in Christ but it avails them nothing.
It is an appalling list.  I wonder whether I dare read it?  “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, not drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
It throws a lurid light upon the conditions of that church at Corinth when Paul could go on to say, “And such were some of you.”
Now we can understand why fornicators and idolaters and adulterers and drunkards and revilers should fail to inherit the kingdom of God.
They are heinous sins.  They are monstrous.  But in the middle of this appalling list comes the effeminate, the soft; and the occurrence of that word brings us up with a sort of jerk, because there seems no kind of parity between the soft on the one side and the thief and drunkard on the other.
We are not accustomed to class softness with desperate wickedness.  Yet the apostle says that the soft shall fail to inherit the kingdom as certainly as the idolater or the adulterer.
It is perfectly true we are not accustomed to regard softness as being such a dreadful thing.  Ease-loving, self-indulgent, comfort-loving Christians are oftentimes quite nice and amiable.  We should never dream of classing them with drunkards and revilers and thieves and the rest.
And yet the doom of the soft is the same as that of the drunkard and the adulterer—they shall not inherit the kingdom of God.  That is the truth I should like to get, if I can, to heart and conscience.  I am not at all sure that softness is not the besetting sin of our time.
People are guarded against other and more flagrant sins by the fact that apparently they are so shameful, but there is no brand of shame attached to the sin of softness and therefore multitudes are in deadly danger of it.
All the calls of the Gospel are calls to hardship, to sacrifice, to battle.  That was the call that Christ continually issued.  “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).  What was the cross in the ancient world?
The cross was the most terrible and agonizing instrument of torture that the ancient world contained, “If any man will come after me,” said Christ, “let him take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
Our Lord would have no man follow Him under the mistaken impression that he was going to have an easy time.  He was almost brutally frank with people about the difficulties of His service.  He would not allow anyone to enter upon it blindfolded.
He told them to sit down and count the cost.  He made it clear that He was calling men—not to comfort—but to battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil!
“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. . .
“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God:  praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Eph. 6:11-12; 17-18).
“He that hath no sword,” Jesus said, “let him sell his cloak, and buy one” (Luke 22:36, Translation).  The cloak is the garb of peace and of slippered ease.  It is no garment for anyone in Christ’s service, for Christ’s service does not mean peace, it means war.  “Sell your cloak,” He says, “buy a sword!”  ( See Eph. 6:17).
Paul’s description of the Christian life as he found it in his own experience, answers in every respect to what is suggested in these calls of Christ.  It is a hard and strenuous life.  After he entered Christ’s service, Paul had no further use for the cloak; the sword of the Spirit was always in his hand.  (Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12; 2 Tim. 4:1-7).
Life was for him “in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings” (2 Cor. 6:4-5).
These are the figures he uses to describe it:  it is a wrestle, not against flesh and blood—that would have been a comparatively simple business.  It is a wrestle against the principalities and the powers of darkness.  (Eph. 6:10-20).
This is how Paul appealed to Timothy to join him in his Christian labors:  “Come and take your share of hardship with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”  (Read 2 Timothy 2:3).
It needed men of resoluteness of character to follow Christ in those days.  The soft invariably fell away.  The course was too trying, the pace was too hot, the life was too hard.
“Upon this, many of his disciples went back, and followed no more after him” (John 6:66, Translation).  “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10).  The soft did not then inherit the kingdom of God!
And the Christian call runs no differently in this twentieth century than it did in the first.  It is still a call to self-denial and to cross-bearing.
The Christian life is still a wrestle and a battle.  Whoso would live it—must doff the cloak, and take the sword of the Spirit!  It still demands courage and steadfastness and resolution.  To this day, my brethren, it remains true that the soft shall not inherit the kingdom of God.—Herald of His Coming.

MATERIALISM

By Mr. and Mrs. E. F. Harvey

The pilgrim nature of the true child of God should testify to the unbelieving world that he is but a stranger passing through.  He should desire to buy up all the opportunities for doing good and should dispense his income as a steward of God.  The Holy Spirit’s object is to bring every new-born babe in Christ to the full stature of Christ.  If we settle down here, amassing riches, and becoming so entangled with the cares of this world that the Word is choked and cannot bring forth fruit to perfection in us, it will have been because we have quenched or grieved the voice of the Spirit.  We have allowed the practices of the world to weigh more with us than the gentle promptings of the Holy Spirit, and so have conformed ourselves to this world.
The rich man whom God called a fool in the Bible was so because, as D. M. Panton says:  “All worldly men are well photographed in the rich fool of Luke 12:16-21.  Some six times this man names himself, but never once speaks of God.  He speaks of ‘my fruits,’ ‘my barns,’ ‘my grain,’ ‘my goods,’ ‘my soul.’  With his fortune made and barns rebuilt, he will retire with much goods and many years.  Like a thunderbolt from the blue bursts God’s estimate of the man:  ‘Thou fool—this night.’  It is impossible for a man who is hoarding no riches in the world he is hastening to, and who treasures everything in the world he is hastening from, to escape the definition of ‘a fool.’”
We cannot serve God and mammon.  We must work in this world, but not to be so overcharged with the money-making, money-gaining spirit as to choke out the knowledge of God.  A test is to ask ourselves what is the absorbing thought in our leisure moments, when we lie down to sleep at night.  Is it to think on the attributes of God, and to commune with Him?  Or is it to lie awake, thinking of how best to make another money deal the next day when we already have enough and to spare.  Oh, the folly of not knowing God and amassing that which we will have to leave when we pass from this world to eternity!
Nature teaches us that there is a penalty to be imposed upon excessive accumulation of oversupply of food:  “An old countryman, wise in the ways of nature, related his experiences in hunting bees in the forest; telling how seldom one finds a bee tree in which bees have stored any considerable supply of honey.  It seems that in the natural habitat, a colony of bees live in a delicately balanced economy.  It maintains proper balance of reproduction, active work and care of the colony; no excess in any part is allowed.  Thus, the honey supply, which represents the wealth of the bee colony is seldom in excess of actual needs.
“My friend pointed out that on the few occasions where he found trees containing a large cache of honey, the bees always seemed to be in a declining state.  The colony which lays up an excessive store of honey does so at the price of neglecting reproductive cells.  The balance of life is destroyed; workers become few; the treasure is a snare that proves the undoing of its possessors.  The bee that becomes rich dies.  What a warning to the Church!”
John Wesley felt the biggest hindrance to Methodism was her accumulation of wealth by many of its formerly poorer adherents.  At eighty-seven he said, “One great reason for the comparative failure of Christianity, is the neglect of the solemn words, ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.’”  At another time he said, “I have only known two Methodists grow rich without declining in grace,” and later he added a postscript, “No, not one.”
Frugality, industry, temperance—are the products of Christianity, but if one does not obey the other commands of Scripture, he will fall into the snare of becoming rich instead of using his wealth, as he passes through this world, for the extension of the Kingdom of God, or for giving to him “that has need.”  Many of the holiness people, because of these virtues of grace, are to be numbered among the affluent and very comfortable.  One would not know that a third world existed, where famine and utmost poverty prevail.  These virtues are like the lilies which we do not consider vices; but they can prove a snare as was experienced by a certain sailing vessel, once becalmed in the South Seas.
“At first it did not seem serious.  The wind would blow again.  But vegetation grows fast in those warm waters, and there soon appeared beautiful lilies—a great floating island of them.  The vines were so thick as to make movement of the ship, except with the current, impossible.  And the vines were drifting in the wrong direction.
“We think of the great dangers of the sea—storms, the vessel afire, smallpox or yellow fever aboard, mutiny, robbers, submarines.  But danger from lilies—who would think of that!  We could name some of the difficulties and dangers of the ‘Christian Life’—gross living, bad habits, bad company, dishonesty, pride, selfishness.  But lilies—they are beautiful and pleasant, so who is afraid?
“Wesley warned against ‘lilies.’  He said Christianity tends to sobriety and industry.  These bring prosperity.  Prosperity—lilies—tends to ease-taking and God-forgetting.  Watch the lilies, that you do not drift with them.”—Spencer Moon, in Wesley Methodist, 1955.
Charles Finney warns Christians about over-busyness and says it is a fruitful cause of backsliding.  A choked Word of God brings leanness of soul and a failure to know God in intimacy.
“A fruitful source of backsliding is having too much worldly business.  God does not wish His servants to have so much work to do that they cannot get time to confer with Him, to tell Him their situation and progress, and to ask His directions.  If you accumulate so much business that you cannot attend on God, it is evident that you have no right views of business.
“If you really considered it as God’s business, you would not think that this was the best way to please and honor Him—to plunge into such a mass of worldly business that you cannot pray or read your Bible.  Business is a duty.  It is a duty, which God requires, to be busy—always usefully employed in some way.  But to get into business that will encroach upon secret prayer and eat out religion is all wrong.  God never requires it.  Men are God’s stewards and He never employs them so that they cannot have time to commune with Him.  And if they run themselves into such a press of worldly business and cares, it is a sure sign that they have set up to do business for themselves, and not for God, and are now hastening to be rich; otherwise they would never think of doing so, for they would have no motive.  Love to God never shows itself in that way.  And he who sets up business on his own account will surely backslide.
“Another frequent cause of backsliding is being associated in business with an unconverted partner.  Whoever forms such a connexion after he is converted, will infallibly taper off his religion; his piety will decay, and he will backslide.  The reason is obvious.  The unconverted man never pursues his business on Christian principles.  And, therefore, the business of the concern can never be conducted on such principles as God requires.”

The Church That Struck Oil
“For the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6:10).

Some years ago a church purchased a piece of land with an eye to future expansion.  Later a drilling company struck oil nearby, and the membership finally gave permission to have an exploratory well sunk on the edge of their property.  One day a gusher came in, providing the assembly with a large unexpected sum of money.  It was decided to pay off the indebtedness and remodel the church.  Meanwhile the oil kept flowing.  Eventually as the royalties mounted, greed began to creep into the hearts of the parishioners.  A meeting was held and a decision was made which provided that future receipts should be divided proportionately among them.
Slowly but surely the real mission of the church was forgotten.  Things came to a climax a few months later when one of the leaders rose at a special session and said, “Because of the helpful income we’re all enjoying, I make a motion that we take in no new members!”  His suggestion was approved.  Having become rich, the congregation had fallen into a snare.  A covetousness had been generated among them which soon strangled any new endeavors on behalf of the cause of Christ.  The lighthouse for God whose beams of truth should have shone brightly over the sea of needy men had lost its spiritual gleam.
Basically we are earthbound and selfish by nature; consequently, the love of money can quickly distort our perspective and make us err from the faith.  No wonder Paul warns, “O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, (and) faith” (1 Tim. 6:11).  The church that struck oil ended up striking out spiritually.  Such is the danger of riches.—H.G.B.

ECUMENICALISM—

Man’s Organization or a Living Organism
By Mr. and Mrs. E. F. Harvey

We all agree today that some form of unity is essential for the Christian Church.  Many Scriptures may be quoted to support unity on a worldwide scale.  Man has thought up a way to achieve this, but God had already imparted the secret to St. Paul when he penned some of his prison epistles.  To him was given a mystery to proclaim—the invisible Body of Christ.  He asked for prayer that his mouth would be opened to proclaim this mystery.  It takes the blessed Holy Spirit to reveal this amazing type of Heaven-planned unity.  It is a product of Heaven and not of man, and like most spiritual gifts it is not to be comprehended apart from the revelation of the Holy Spirit.  It was not a visible unity or St. Paul would not have written to Timothy about all in Asia being turned against him.  Nor would he have bewailed the fact that at his trial no one stood with him.  If this mystery were concerned with a visible grouping of Christians, where were they when Paul was in such need?  Where were the visible supporters of Elijah when he so boldly stood up and denounced the false worshippers of Baal?  There were seven thousand such souls, scattered and hidden in Israel but they were not present at that trying scene.
To understand this unity of the Body of Christ, the individuals must have been baptized by one Spirit into one Body.  It is a work of the Holy Spirit, and it is He Who quickens the spiritual senses so that man could see the unseen, hear in stillness the voice of God, taste the good things of God, handle the mysteries of the kingdom and smell the cassia, myrrh and other fragrant odors that surround the Person of Christ.  These, alone, are the members of this living Body and receive impulses from their living Head.  They work in unison with others of God’s saints lodged in different communions, or scattered up some country lane or lonely islet, worshipping God in Spirit and quietly performing His counsel.
The others, the vast multitude of professors, will umbrella under any strong individual in whom they repose confidence and settle down content to be under the guidance and direction of mere man.  This is why human organizations exist in such prolific numbers.  People will often sell up their property and hand it all over to some community to handle rather than face the soul-searching experience of hearing from God and administering as His stewards, their time, money or talents to the glory of God.
Faith is God’s approved method for man appropriating all the riches of grace placed at his disposal.  By faith many saints have waited for God before acting on their own initiative.  Because of this no image or picture was to be made by man representing the invisible God.  Faith alone was to be the instrument by which all of the unseen kingdom was to be made manifest to man.  “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”
Now the highest form of unity would necessitate such a faith.  But how few grasp such a wonderful, amazing truth!  When observing Christians meeting perplexing problems in their lives, how rarely do we discover those who will get to grips with God, refusing to act until the living Head has made known God’s mind.  They prefer to counsel with a seen head about their call, their marriage, their removal from one district to another, their wise expenditure of time or money or about their own spiritual needs.  So human organizations grow like mushrooms while the Body of Christ is so little recognized.  People would rather stand on their heads at somebody’s command, than quietly to wait before God, for a protracted period, to know the Divine mind.
We can trace tragedy throughout the Bible whenever men sought not the counsel of God.  It was when Israel traded the unseen Commander for the seen king that their spiritual problems accumulated.  They rejected the invisible for their visible leader.  They bartered the guidance and protection of One Who was almighty for a puny man to ride out before them, commanding them, with chariots of iron, horsemen and massed armies.
Carnal dignitaries of the outward church, realizing this weakness in man to grasp for the seen, provide splendid cathedrals and magnificent churches.  Note the pompous vestments of popes, cardinals and bishops.  Modern evangelists cater to this by staying only in first class hotels and wearing suits of most expensive cloth and cut.  Compare all this with the simple life-style of the primitive church or of various denominations at their beginnings when God was in their midst.  As the invisible waned, however, the fearful loss had to be made up with the seen—ornate carvings of altar, candle light, exquisitely arranged floral displays, vestments and large imposing buildings.
The herd instinct is characteristic of all the children of the first Adam.  There is a mortal fear of venturing out of the normally accepted worldly order.  Sanctified souls alone are individuals in conduct and character.  To obey Christ, the Head, would mean death to this deep, basic desire for uniformity.  To obey the impulses from that Head Who took the way of reproach and complete dependence upon the Father, would wither man’s self-sufficiency and worldly wisdom.  We are afraid of the God Who chooses the weak things to confound the mighty and the base things to bring to nought the things that are.  His requirements would sound too harsh and too unorthodox for unsanctified man.
This is the reason why the mystery of this marvelous Body of Christ is not more readily grasped by religious persons.  The depraved heart of man clings to the world of the seen and, in order to make his choice acceptable to his own conscience, he will more willingly accept the offer of the antichrist for unity which will embrace the masses, satisfy the soulish desire for beauty and evade any demands which would elicit the contempt of the world.  The antichrist will include enough Bible doctrine to satisfy man’s craving for a measure of fundamentalism, but oh, what man will forfeit by such seen exchange for the invisible Body of Christ!
We do not say that the Holy Spirit may not move one member of the Body to inspire another member or that a godly biography may not show us the way out of a perplexity, but it will be the province of the Holy Spirit to use such instruments.  The best of men are only men after all.  No human shoulders were meant to carry the burden which guiding men and women, apart from the aid of the Spirit, would demand.  Jesus Christ alone is worthy not only to open the Book, but to be the living Head, issuing orders to the members of His own Church.
The price of becoming a member of the Body of Christ is not nearly so high as is the cost of compromising precious convictions in order to have false doctrines and unbiblical practices.
For our help as mortals, God first fashioned the thought of this glorious Church as His Body, and then created the physical body with its members and with the brain issuing the nerve impulses to each member.  In this way we can grasp in some small way the glory of that harmonious working together of the members of His Body moved by impulses of Divine ordering.  After all, St. Paul did mean it when he said, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, THEY ARE THE SONS OF GOD.”

What is Schism?
“Schism is not dividing hypocrites from hypocrites, formal professors from people of their own caste.  It is not dividing nominal Episcopalians from each other, nominal Methodists from nominal Methodists, or nominal Quakers from nominal Quakers.  But schism is the dividing real Christians from each other, and breaking the unity of the Spirit.  This is the true apostolic definition of schism, which consists in ‘rending the Body of Christ,’ and not in any disruption of a false Church.”
These very illuminating words come from the pen of Francis Asbury, the tireless lover of souls whose home was “the long road” of the itinerant.  He had gone to the United States to spread the Gospel when pioneering was costly.  He never had a furlough.  He never again saw the face of his beloved parents in England, but died in the home of a friend after preaching the Gospel for the last time.

A PROPHECY

A friend sent us the following prophetic word from a minister who, we would judge from the reading, has had some knowledge of the Charismatic Movement.  We believe this word is most timely.
The Lord God says:  “Hear my word.  The time that has been marked by my blessings and gifts is being replaced now by the period to be marked by my judgment and purification.  What I have not accomplished by blessings and gifts, I will accomplish by judgment and purification.  My people, my church is desperately in need of this judgment.  They have continued in an adulterous relationship with the spirit of the world.  They are not only infected with sin, but they teach sin, pamper sin, embrace sin, dismiss sin . . . Leadership unable to handle it . . . fragmentation, confusion throughout the ranks . . . Satan goes where he will and infects who he will.  He has free access throughout my people, and I will not stand for this.
“My people specially blessed in this renewal are more under the spirit of the world than they are under the Spirit of my baptism.  They are more determined with fear for what others will think of them, fears of failure and rejection in the world, loss of respect by neighbors and superiors and those around them, than they are determined by fear of me and fear of infidelity to my word.  Therefore your situation is very, very weak.  Your power is so limited.  You cannot be considered at this point in the center of the battle and the conflict that is going on.
“So this time is now come upon all of you—a time of judgment and of purification.  Sin will be called sin.  Satan will be unmasked.  Fidelity will be held up for what it is and should be.  My faithful servants will be seen and will come together.  They will not be many in number.  It will be a difficult and a necessary time.  There will be collapse, difficulties throughout the world but—more to the issue—there will be purification and persecution among my people.  You will have to stand for what you believe.  You will have to choose between the world and me.  You will have to choose what word you will follow and who you will respect.  And in that choice what has not been accomplished by the time of blessing and gifts will be accomplished.
“What has not been accomplished in the baptism and the flooding of gifts of my Spirit will be accomplished in a baptism of fire.  The fire will move among you and it will burn out what is chaff.  The fire will move among you individually, corporately, in groups, and around the world.  I will not tolerate the situation that is going on.  I will not tolerate the mixture and the adulterous treating of gifts and graces and blessings with infidelity, sin and prostitution.
“My time is now among you.  What you need to do is to come before me in total submission to my word, in total submission to my plan.  In the total submission of this hour, what you need to do is to drop the things that are your own, the things of the past.  What you need to do is to see yourselves and those whom you have responsibility for in light of this hour of judgment and purification.  You need to see them in that way and do for them what will best help them to stand strong and be among my faithful servants.  For there will be casualties.  It will not be easy, but it is necessary.
“It is necessary that my people be in fact my people, that my church be in fact my church and that my Spirit in fact bring forth the purity of life, purity and fidelity to the Gospel.”                                               
—Mike Scanlan, President Steubenville University.