Christian Victory Message on TWICE FREE! Jul-Sep 1977

I was very definitely converted to God in 1856.  I was very ignorant, but I had been taught that God would save me the moment I believed.  I lived in the country in a family of “Friends,” and went to town only once a fortnight.  When I was convicted of sin I prayed, fasted, wept, read my Bible, but the more I read the more confused I got.  I used to think my one trouble was disobedience, and it seemed to me I needed someone who had not sinned to intercede with Jesus for me.  Therefore I cried to the wind, the sun, the moon and stars to carry my sorrow to the Lord:  “O wind!  you never sinned like me, tell Jesus I’m a poor sinner.”  When the sun got up and lighted the world, I said:  “O sun!  you never sinned like me, tell Jesus I’m a poor sinner.”  At night, when the moon and stars were shining, I cried in my distress, “O moon and stars!  you’ve never sinned like me, but kept your place as God has made you; tell Jesus I’m a poor sinner.”  Thus I pleaded second-handedly with Jesus through the heavenly bodies; but, oh!  the wonderful forbearance of God!  I can’t understand it.
I sat down one day almost in despair.  The suggestion came—“You’ve been sincere; you’ve fasted, wept, prayed, read your Bible.  You’ve been three months like this.  God does His work quick:  if He’d meant to convert you, He’d have done it long ago.  Give it up!”  But it seemed as if the Holy Spirit said, “Pray once more.”  “Yes,” I said, “and I’ll be converted this afternoon, if there’s any such thing as conversion.”
It was March 17, a bright and beautiful day.  I got all my work as forward as I could, and then went down into the cellar and began to pray.  “O Lord, convert my soul.”  The suggestion followed, “That’s just what you’ve said many times before.  It’s no use.”  I began again, “O Lord, please convert my soul.  If you’ll only do it, I’ll love and obey you all my life:  O Lord, if not, I’ve come down here to die.  Salvation or death!  I’ll never leave this cellar alive unless I have that which I’ve been praying for so long.”  Well, I did die; but I came to life again very quick.  I said, “O Lord, I WILL BELIEVE.”  The darkness that had filled my heart so long all passed as before the noon-day sun.  When I got a glimpse of Christ, my Savior, my bonds were loosed, and I cried, “Why, Lord, I do believe; this is just what I have been asking for.  O Lord, I do believe!”  And down it came like a wave all through me again and again.
Why didn’t they tell me it was like this?  Why didn’t they tell me it was only by believing God?  I was a new creature.  I was all new—my flesh, my head, my whole being.  I rubbed my hands together and said, “Oh!  I’m new!”  You know what color they are; but there seemed a halo over them.  I made but two springs out of the cellar.  The glory of God filled my heart.  I wanted to tell someone, and I thought, “Must I wait a fortnight before I can tell out my joy!”  How many times I had prayed for hours in that kitchen after they had all gone to bed!  Now I struck the table at which I had so often knelt, and cried, “I’M SAVED!”  and the table seemed to bound with delight.  I wanted to see if I was the same.  I might have been as green as grass or as black as the ace of spades, but I felt new.  There was a large mirror in the parlor, and I went in there to see if I was the same, or if some wonderful change had come upon me.
When I told about it, some of my people said, “There’ll be a vacillation.  Wait till the Devil fires a few bomb-shells, and you won’t be as happy as you are now.”  Not being taught that God would sanctify and keep me, I was sometimes on the mountain, sometimes in the valley; but in reading my Bible and praying very much, I began to see that God had more of the same kind to follow, and being so much more it really was better than the beginning.
I had now begun to seek entire sanctification.  I asked an elder what was meant by being “pure in heart.”  “O child,” he said, “that means you must come as near to it as you can.”  I went home, but oh, this hunger and thirst after righteousness was not satisfied.  When I was convicted for holiness I was in a clearly justified state.  I had no doubt about my acceptance with God.  When I was converted it was conviction of guilt; now it was conviction of want.  As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so my soul panted after God, the living God.  “That comes to me what I want,” I said, “it’s God!”  The elder said, “You must come to it as near as you can.  What is the use of fretting yourself.  Do all you can.  Visit the sick, sing, pray!”  But the hunger went on, and when I read, “Rejoice when men persecute you,” I felt that was not my experience:  there was a feeling of retaliation.  And when they spoke about me and blamed me, I wanted to justify myself instead of leaving it all with God.
Then I read, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification.”  I went to the old deacon and asked, “What’s the meaning of this?”  “Oh,” he said, “that’s the blessing people get just before they die.”  Well, I didn’t want to die; I wanted to live and work for God, and when they told me, “You’ll never live this life till you die,” I wanted to live and not to die.
In 1868 it pleased God to let me hear a sermon from Rev. J. S. Inskip, from the words, “Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:23-24).  I had never read a book, or tract, or definite testimony, but now as the preacher went on, I followed like a child with its hand in its father’s, and as he made point after point, I said, “Yes, that’s plain.”  But I thought, if I got it, how shall I keep it?  I didn’t remember it was Christ keeping me.  Mr. Inskip said, “When you are tired and go to bed, you don’t think of asking how you’re to breathe?  And so if you get God dwelling in you, He’ll live Himself in you.”  “Yes,” I said, “I see it.”  Just then a mighty baptism—I don’t know what else to call it—came down on me.  Every nerve in body, soul and spirit seemed to feel it.  A joy and power swelled up in my heart to overflowing.
The next point was that this blessing was instantaneously received, but the development would be continuous.  “How long is a dark room dark after you take a light into it?”  “Yes, Lord, I see it,” I said, and down came this wonderful, inexpressible something, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.  The preacher went on:  “If Jesus is able, in the twinkling of an eye, to change this vile body and make it like unto His own glorious body, how long does it take Him to sanctify a soul?”  Quicker than the sparks fly from the steel I touched God, God touched me.  Hallelujah!

EDITORIAL
THY HOLY SPIRIT, LORD, ALONE

Why is it that with a much more educated ministry than in any age, with organized evangelism being heralded to unprecedented degree, with our pockets, desks and heads being flooded with printed matter and religious propaganda—why it is, we repeat, that there are so few outstanding new births, so few revivals, so much back-sliding, so great confusion, such icy apathy?  The answer is not far to seek.  The Author of the Christian religion, the Divine Son of God, in His valedictory message to the Church founders, His eleven disciples, spoke plainly and said that it would be the One great Teacher and Enabler Whose coming would do all that we are trying to do.  When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will convince the world!  We need look no further for the root of our troubles—neglect in inviting the Holy Ghost into every service, every pulpit, every effort.  We now wish to call a multitude of witnesses to support this great truth.
George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends:  “That which I was moved to declare was this—that the Holy Scriptures were given forth by the Spirit of God in themselves, by which they might know God and Christ, of Whom the apostles and prophets learnt, and by the same Spirit know the Holy Scriptures: for as the Spirit of God was in them that gave forth the Scriptures, so the same Spirit of God must be in all them that would understand the Scriptures:  by which Spirit they might have fellowship with the Son, and with the Father, and with the Scriptures, and with one another; and without this Spirit they can know neither God nor Christ, nor the Scriptures, nor have right fellowship with one another.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Baptist pulpit orator:  “The preaching that kills may be, and often is orthodox—dogmatically, inviolably orthodox.  In the Christian system, unction is the anointing of the Holy Ghost, separating a person unto God’s work, and preparing him for it.  This unction is the one Divine enablement by which the preacher accomplishes the peculiar and saving ends of preaching.  Without this unction there are no true spiritual results accomplished.
“The results and forces in preaching do not rise above the results of unsanctified speech.  Without the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel has no more power to propagate itself than any other system of truth.  This is the seal of its divinity.  Unction in the preacher puts God in the Gospel.”
Andrew Bonar, the Scottish Presbyterian Saint:  “Yesterday and today especially, though also for some more days, I have had upon my mind a very clear and strong impression of the necessity of the Holy Ghost taking the veil from the heart of the sinner before he can see sin, eternity, Christ, or any spiritual truth.  From time to time this has been coming in upon me, leading me to cry to the Lord more than formerly for the presence and working of His Spirit, that individuals in the congregation, and individuals in my communicants’ class, who seem blind and unmoved by the great realities of salvation, may be quickened.  May tomorrow be a day of the Spirit’s working, when I preach upon ‘The things which are unseen are eternal.’”

1. J. Gordon, the Author who speaks long after his death:  “Theology without the Holy Spirit is poison.  There have been more men ruined by handling the deep things of God without the Spirit of God to help them, than by any other process that I am aware of.  The light is made for the eye, but if the eye is diseased the light becomes intolerably painful; it torments the eye.  So the truth is made for the soul, but if the soul is unsanctified, that which ought to come to it as its own native air, hurts, injures and destroys.”

Thomas Cook, Methodist Holiness Champion:  “Nobody ever was or ever will be converted merely by the preaching of the Gospel.  It is the Gospel applied and enforced by the Holy Spirit that saves men.  Like the Arctic sun, it is possible to give light without heat.  Clear views of truth may be set forth, but without the Spirit’s unction no convincing power will attend their enunciation.  The more gifts the better, if all are subsidized and sanctified by the Spirit of God, but apart from absolute reliance upon Him, human ability may become a snare.”

1. M. Bounds, Advocate of Prayer:  “Unction comes to the preacher not in the study but in the closet.  It is Heaven’s distillation in answer to prayer.  It is the sweetest exhalation of the Holy Spirit.  It impregnates, suffuses, softens, percolates, cuts and soothes.  It carries the Word like dynamite, like salt, like sugar; makes the Word a soother, an arraigner, a revealer, a searcher.  It makes the hearer a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a child and live like a giant; opens his heart and his purse as gently, yet as strongly, as the Spring opens the leaves.

“This unction is not the gift of genius.  It is not found in the halls of learning.  No eloquence can woo it.  No industry can win it.  No prelatical hands can confer it.  It is the gift of God—the signet set to His own messengers.  It is Heaven’s Knighthood given to the chosen true and brave ones who have sought this anointed honor through many an hour of tearful, wrestling prayer.”
Oswald J. Smith, Contemporary Voice of Canada:  “In the early Church it was the Holy Spirit Who did the work.  He it was Who guided and directed the apostles.  He it was Who convicted of sin and started the apostolic revivals.  He—God, the Holy Ghost—was the One Who founded the Early Church.
“Today, to a large extent, He is ignored.  It is high time, I say, that we give Him His rightful place, for He is the One Who must do the work.
“Down through the years of my ministry I have studied the lives of those whom God has used, and I have discovered that everyone was an anointed man.  Each one knew something of a critical experience in his life, when the Holy Ghost took over and began using him.  Each one was an anointed man.
“Anointed men are not satisfied with education and training.  They know something more is needed!”
Brethren, we must humble ourselves and listen to this army of saints who witness so conclusively, not forgetting that every successful soul-winner in any age would only confirm the above.  Let us penitently seek the Divine infilling and see revived the ministry of the Holy Ghost.

GO ON TO PERFECTION

By William McDonald

Hebrews 6:1-3.  “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection.”  By “the principles of the doctrine of Christ” we are to understand those elementary doctrines that lie at the basis of Christian experience and life.  As every building must have a foundation, and as every language must have an alphabet, so these “principles of the doctrine of Christ” are but the foundation which lead us to the perfection of which the Apostle speaks.
First, these “principles” are named here under six heads, “Repentance from dead works . . . faith toward God . . . the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.”  We are to understand that these embrace all the “principles of the doctrine of Christ,” and that they present examples of these principles in the various departments of Christian life.  For example, “repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,” have reference substantially to the inner life of the Christian, and then “the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands,” whatever that may imply, has reference specifically to what may be called the ceremonial life of the Christian, for religion has its outward ceremonies as well as its inward experiences.  Then, “the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment,” relates to the future life explicitly, so that these principles cover the inner life, the outer life, and the future life of the Christian, and that is the whole of life as we apprehend it.
Now, what is meant by “leaving the principles,” these elementary truths or doctrines?  I am certain that it cannot mean that we are to abandon them, so as no longer to hold them as articles of faith, or teach them to the people, or practice them in our lives.  There will not come a time, I think, at least in the present state of things, when we shall not hold these doctrines as dogmatic truths, and teach them as important doctrines, and practice them in our lives to a greater or a lesser extent.
But by “leaving the principles,” I understand that we are not to make them the end of our attainment, as the great majority of professing Christians are doing, who never get beyond the foundation, who never do anything except master the alphabet.
After years of experience, the great mass of Christians, it is to be feared, remain where they were at the beginning, if, indeed, they have held fast the first strength of their Christian life.  I have heard persons say frequently in their testimony, as a matter of exultation and gratitude, “I thank God that twenty or thirty years ago I was converted, and for these years I have not backslidden.”  Is that a wonderful achievement, for a man to start out on a race for glory and find himself, after twenty years, where he was when he started?  And yet, indeed, it is often the case, that, after so many years, they have not the comfort and joy and heavenly communion they had when God saved them; and they are even sighing for the days of their espousals to Christ, and wish they were as happy now as then.  They sing:

“Tongue can never express,
The sweet comfort and peace,
Of a soul in its earliest love”—

and emphasize the words, “in its earliest love,” as though that was the time when the sweetest peace and enjoyment were realized.  Indeed, that ought to have been only the alphabet of what they have known in the later Christian life; simply the beginning of a life that ought to have been going onward to the deeper and richer experiences of grace.
I cannot tell what use you can put a foundation to, except you build a superstructure on it, nor of what use an alphabet is, except for the acquiring of a language.  There are many professed Christians who started with a good foundation, but they have never put a brick or stone upon it since; there are many who learn the alphabet, but they never have succeeded in learning monosyllables.  I take it that, if a foundation be left exposed to the atmosphere, in a short time it will begin to crumble and fall, while it would stand firmly if a good superstructure were put upon it.
So in regard to an alphabet.  If you learn an alphabet, and go no further, pretty soon you will forget it.  I remember a good many years ago I got an idea that I ought to learn German, and so I engaged a teacher and began.  I learned the alphabet thoroughly and went on a little, then my teacher left me and then I left German, and now the whole alphabet has faded from my memory.  I lost it by simply failing to go on and acquire the language.  And so it is in Christian experience.  You stop with your early experience, and, as God lives, you are a dead man or woman spiritually.  In a short time you will have lost all you gained.
I wish now, to call your attention to the experience to which these “principles” lead us—“perfection.”  It is not a very pleasant term to some.  Indeed it is rather objectionable to most persons and exceedingly offensive to many.  They can stand almost any other term better than “perfection.”  I am told that this term ought not to be applied to Christian experience, because perfection is so high, so great, so wonderful and so exceptional in this world, it is a stumbling-block in the way of those who think of it.
If this term is a stumbling-block to believers, the Holy Ghost is responsible for putting it in their way.  We have not selected the word at all.  It is not one of our invention; it is a word divinely inspired and a word that, with its equivalents, inspiration has employed to describe Christian experience more frequently than any other single term.  I cannot conceive how God, understanding human nature and its capabilities and the meaning of the word “perfection,” should have employed this word so often if He knew, as some people say, that the word describes an experience absolutely impracticable and impossible in this life.  We should think God would have found out long ere this, as much as they have found out in regard to it, and withheld the word from such a common use.  They say “there is nothing perfect in this world, and why apply the word ‘perfection’ to Christians?”
But notwithstanding this declaration, I hear people talking about things that they call perfect.  A man has a beautiful horse and he insists that it is perfect:  that is beyond what we claim for any religious attainment in this life, or in the other life.  A man has a beautiful flower in his garden; he calls your attention to it and says, “Is not that perfect?”  You have a beautiful crystal, and as it sparkles in the sunlight, you enquire, “Did you ever see a thing so perfect as that?”  and I say, “It is perfect.”
Suppose I should go into one of your manufactories, and I should enquire of the manager, “Have you any perfect cloths?”  and he says, “No, they are all imperfect!  We do not make any perfect cloth in Manchester at all.  We do not manufacture anything but imperfect textures here.”  Would I not say to him at once, “Then I have no business with you; I shall go where they have perfect materials”?  If the question were asked you, “Have you perfect materials?”  wouldn’t you say, “Yes, we do not make imperfect cloths here, except by accident”?
That is not the way we talk about things.  Why, bless you, we speak of perfection everywhere.  Even music has its perfect cadence and its perfect chord, so they tell us.  Mathematics has its perfect number, they tell us so in the colleges and schools; and grammar they insist, has its perfect tense.  I insist that SALVATION has its perfect love for human hearts.  If an artist can throw your picture upon canvas perfectly, so that your friends declare it is a perfect likeness, do you not think that God could so imprint the likeness of Jesus Christ on your soul, that you should possess perfect love?
Most people insist that we are teaching absolute perfection, and we tell them we are not.  I wonder who knows best?  There is no absolute perfection to which nothing could be added in quality or quantity, except in God Himself.  Gabriel himself is not possessed of that kind of perfection, and certainly mortals here are not.
It is not Adamic perfection, for that includes perfection of body and mind as well.  It is not angelic perfection; so the perfection of which we speak is simply a perfection of love—the loving God with all the heart, might, mind and strength.  John speaks of this perfection when he says, “Herein is our love made perfect:”  and, “Perfect love casteth out fear.”
Let me give you two definitions of the word perfect:  “A thing is perfect when it possesses all that properly belongs to it and nothing else.”  Under the old dispensation a lamb was considered a perfect sacrifice, but it was to be a perfect lamb.  But what made the lamb perfect?  That is the question.  It might have been larger or smaller, fatter or leaner, older or younger than some other lamb, but if it had simply what belonged to a lamb, and nothing else—no excrescences, no redundancies—that made it a perfect sacrifice.
Now, apply that to a Christian.  If he has just what belongs to a Christian and nothing else, he is a perfect Christian, is he not?  For example, if he has faith without unbelief, he has perfect faith.  If he has humility without pride, he has perfect humility.  If he has love without hate, he has perfect love.  It does not turn on the amount of faith, or love, or humility; it depends on the quality—that is all.  It must not be a compound in his heart.  It must be love with all hate sifted out of it.  It must be faith with unbelief all extracted from it.  It must be humility with all pride taken out of it; and that makes a Christian a perfect Christian.
Let me give you a definition of perfection given by an Englishman of olden times.  I refer to Richard Hooker, one of the grandest men that England ever knew.  It is this—“We account those things perfect which want nothing requisite for the end whereunto they were instituted.”  If a thing answers the end for which it was intended, it is perfect.
If a Christian does exactly what God made him to do, he is perfect.  But now you must understand that because he is perfect in the one direction he is not necessarily perfect in all other directions.  Let me illustrate what I mean.  The machinery of that clock yonder, I suppose to be perfect machinery.  It does exactly what the maker intended it should do; it keeps time correctly.  The locomotive that runs a railway train from here to London is perfect, because it does exactly and perfectly what the maker intended it should do.
But now suppose I adopt the method that if a thing is perfect for one thing it must be perfect for everything. I wish to get away to London on Monday, and attach the machinery of the clock to the railway train, and I just run in a locomotive here to keep time for you in my absence.  Can you conceive of a more unreasonable and improper adjustment of things than that?  The fact is, the machinery of the clock was intended to keep time, that of the locomotive, to run a railway train.  They each do their own work, and in that particular are perfect.
Now, if a Christian does just what God made him to do, which is nothing more or less, than to love God with all his heart, he is a perfect Christian.  Jesus Christ says, upon this law and the other which grows out of it, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself . . . hang all the law and the prophets.”  I cannot be like an angel, nor like Adam.  I cannot do a thousand things I should like to do, but if I love God with all my heart, I am a perfect Christian.
—From Addresses on Holiness, Star Hall.

Can you or any other enlightened person, go to the throne of grace, and offer up the following prayer without feeling ashamed of your conduct?
“Create in me a partial holiness, O God: and let a partial pollution remain within me.  Let me obey and honor Thee O God in some things; and let me disregard and dishonor Thee in others.
“Take away from me some evil things; but allow me the indulgence of unholy desire and worldly love or pride and self-will.
“If I am righteous to all intents and purposes the world will persecute me; but if I unite within myself both the sinner and saint, they will not feel so condemned themselves by my strict example.
“Bless me, O God, with a better heart, but not a clean one.”
Selection submitted by E. Howe.

Blest are the humble souls that see
Their emptiness and poverty;
Treasures of grace to them are given
And Crowns of joy laid up in Heaven.

Blest are the men of broken heart,
Who mourn for sin and inward smart;
The blood of Christ divinely flows,
A healing balm for all their woes.

Blest are the souls that long for grace,
Hunger and thirst for righteousness;
They shall be well supplied and fed,
With living streams and living bread.

Blest are the pure, whose hearts are clean
From the defiling power of sin;
With endless pleasure they shall see
The God of spotless purity.

Blest are the sufferers, who partake
Of pain and shame for Jesu’s sake;
Their souls shall triumph in the Lord;
Glory and joy are their reward.
—Isaac Watts.

EYES MUST BE OPENED

By Mrs. E. F. Harvey

“In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened. . . . And the eyes of them both were opened” (Gen. 3:5, 7).
“The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4).
“To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God” (Acts 26:18).
Opened eyes as a result of disobedience!  It seems incredible, but the Divine record says, “The eyes of them both were opened.”  The New Testament writer, however, states what appears a contradiction of the Genesis record, “The god of this world hath blinded their minds.”
The way in which we alone can reconcile this seeming contradiction is to recognize the distinction between man’s spiritual and physical sight.  Adam and Eve, created in God’s image, from the first enjoyed God.  A partnership with Him in subduing the earth and dressing the garden seemed the most natural of arrangements.  God, out of His infinite wisdom as Creator, supplied the much needed knowledge and power.  Man, who knew comparatively very little, was the working partner, following directions.  This simple arrangement—God being the Director and man the performer—was most agreeable to our first parents, until the subtle suggestion of the serpent found lodgment in their hearts.  Now they suspected that God might be withholding some form of knowledge from them which would cause them to be “as gods” knowing good and evil.  So they ate of the forbidden tree, and in doing so their eyes were opened to that to which previously they had been blind.  And so their minds were darkened, resulting in alienation from God.
Now their eyes were opened to a world of material values—things good to eat; things pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired, and something to make one wise.  As the proverbial carrot hung just in front of the donkey, so Satan now dangled the tempting offers of worldly goods and honors attractively before man, and so blinded him to values of enduring worth.  The vast, invisible realm of spiritual riches and certainties was exchanged for the visible, the transient and material.
Has it not been the experience of many to have spent years pursuing those things which they think it will be “life” to obtain?  They are conforming to the rule of society all about them—acquiring, climbing and hoping to achieve riches, fame and honor.  Blinded man seems to have no conviction that to leave God, his Maker, out of his calculations is tragic.  He does so because his eyes were blinded to a God-dimension.  Satan had to first blind men toward God and insinuate distrust before he could attract him with trifling things of time.  So by filling his horizon with material things, he blinded him Godward.
Gaining the whole seen world was now man’s objective:  the thought of losing his own soul never obtruded itself upon his vision as he pursued his mad but pleasing goal.  He had exchanged his soul in order to possess things.  He had lost substance—God—and grasped at shadows.  A small object can shut out the sun; a curtained room can veil the wider horizon.
Opening the Word in Genesis, we see that man lost tragically by choosing the seen.  Closing the Divine record, we read in Revelation 18 of the downfall of Babylon, a picture of the world church, whose chief occupation seems to have been in trading in merchandise.  Of her, John in his vision wrote:  “And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee . . . and thou shalt find them no more . . . for in one hour so great riches is come to nought.”  And the merchants she had dealt with cried as they viewed her swift destruction, saying, “Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness!  for in one hour is she made desolate” (Rev. 18 :14, 19).
The object of Christ’s coming to earth was to reverse the effects of the fall.  Man’s spiritual eyes and understanding needed opening.  That part of him which died as a result of his disobedience needed quickening into life.  God’s great plan for man’s recovery lies in the miracle of revelation.  “Ye must be born again,” Christ said to the masterly scholar, Nicodemus.  “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
“How can these things be?” asked the incredulous enquirer.  “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? . . . we testify that we have seen . . . If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” (John 3:9-12).
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” announced the last Adam to multitudes on the Mount.  “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”  In one of the few prayers recorded from the lips of Jesus we have the same truth uttered:  “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.  Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.  All things are delivered unto me of my Father:  and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will revealhim.”
The natural man will rate everything as fanaticism or enthusiasm which he cannot perceive with his darkened mind.  That which cannot be accounted for save by simple faith will be rejected by the wise of this earth.  It is little wonder that modernists, intellectual giants, have critically appraised the inspired Word of God, only to return the verdict that much of it is legendary and contradictory.  Could one expect anything other than this when their eyes have never been opened through a quickening Spirit so that they might enter the Kingdom as children and babes?  If man was tempted away by the seen, he must return by way of the unseen and be conducted thither by a Guide.  Not until his pride is laid low will he submit as a child to such a humiliating experiment in faith.
When our Savior, as the last Adam, met the same wily serpent in the wilderness,  He succeeded where the first Adam fell.  The god of this world likewise “showed to Jesus the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them,” in a moment of time.  The Bible does not minutely describe the vision that passed as the two stood viewing the kingdoms of this world and their glory:  the sculptural beauty of the Greek Parthenon; the palatial residences of the Caesars; the colosseums, the flashing retinues of the Generals marching homeward in triumph after conquest; the gold, the silver, the gems, the splendid equipage; the gorgeous temples with their rich tapestries, the richly colored vestments of priests, the gilded furnishings resplendent with intricate carvings and upholstered with luxurious fabrics!  Did none of this have a cultural appeal to the eyes of the Son of Man?
Then there would be seats of learning with their renowned teachers—the combined wisdom of the sages.  Did not our lowly, humble Redeemer know that to use such appeals would capture the imagination of the natural man?  Did not Satan whisper subtly to the Messiah that He might use the visible, material things and combine them with the spiritual in order to succeed in His mission to this world?
Our Savior conquered the devil where the first man fell.  He countered every suggestion with God’s supreme authority over Him.  The Word of God was the weapon from His Divine arsenal with which He would foil every attempt of the prince of this world to deter Him from His God-sent and God-planned mission to earth.  He humbled Himself.  He took upon Him the form of a servant, disrobing Himself of all outward splendor that He might capture men by sheer unseen realities without the aid of outward, material things.
We do not have a clear description of the tree of life which stood in the midst of the garden.  Isaiah in the fifty-third chapter, however, fills in the missing details, as foreshadowed in Christ.  He was that Tree, that Vine, that Bread!  Those who ate would never die!  But He had no form nor comeliness.  He was as a root out of dry ground.  He was despised and rejected of man, and man hid his face from Him.  The very fact that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was attractive would lead us to infer that the god of this world was given all things seen with which to tempt man from God.
Christ, on the contrary, came to conquer in this world of greed, pride and ambition by offering men nothing with which to enhance their earthly lot or name.  He promised rich rewards to faith—but rewards in the coming ages.  The woman at the well rightly appraised Christ’s methods of appeal when she said, “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with and the well is deep.”  Indeed, He came with nothing to draw with.  The root out of dry ground was to depend wholly upon His Father’s drawing and the Holy Spirit’s revelation.  Only with opened eyes could men account the corner-stone as precious Whom others valued only as a rock of offence and a stone of stumbling.
Let us travel for a moment to the foothills of Palestine.  Two men are viewing the surrounding countryside.  Below them lies the fertile and fruitful plain of Sodom; behind, the barren hillsides with pockets of pasturage for wandering shepherds guiding their flocks.  “And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.  Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan.”  Abraham’s portion was contained in a promise of a God he could not see.  His benefits were to be conferred in the future.  He looked for a city which John the Revelator saw—the New Jerusalem descending out of Heaven.
Lot’s choice was a glance at the tree whose foliage and fruit was most attractive.  Abraham possessed the root out of dry ground, but what a partnership he enjoyed with God; what friendship was his.  How enriched we are because of Abraham’s choice; how we shudder at the encroachment wicked Sodom made upon Lot’s family.
We worship at the feet of our most adorable God as we see with what infinite wisdom He chose to subdue the world unto Himself.  Through the cross, through self-abnegation, He would draw as with a magnet men to His Kingdom.  He promises persecution, exile and death to His followers, and yet He has always had men and women embracing His cross and faithfully following even unto death.
Where else but in the spiritual realm could such seeming folly be highest wisdom?  Where could weak, helpless mortals get strength to withstand the pressures of the entire world order, to say nothing of the cunning tempter?  They endure as seeing Him Who is invisible.  This unveiling of spiritual riches in Christ holds enthralled its votaries.  God has triumphed over the prince of the power of the air in countless instances all down through history when men, as Paul, are counted the filth and offscouring of the world and yet consider themselves to be highly favored—gladly counting all things but loss to win the prize.
Paul’s earthly eyes were blinded when that light shone on him along the Damascus road.  When the scales fell he went forth, having nothing, yet possessing all things; poor, yet making many rich.  He had discovered the lost dimension.  He had exchanged the visible for the invisible.  He spoke about the things he had to suffer as light afflictions but only while he kept his vision clear—“while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen:  for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Paul had experienced the reverse of the Fall.  It resulted in being misunderstood by blind men and so he was accounted as a sheep for the slaughter, was discredited, maligned and forsaken.  He had seen; his eyes had been opened and his commission was to “open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light.”  It was his duty from then on to “make all men see.”
One only has to read the lofty language of Paul to know that he had discovered the missing dimension.  The riches of Christ were almost impossible to describe in human language.  To the Ephesians, he wrote, “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.  And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places.”
Was Paul a man to be pitied?  Note how he endeavors to explain his spiritual enlightenment.  “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery.  Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”
If Christianity seems a dry thing—a root out of dry ground; if there is no beauty in Christ that you should desire His company, His Word and obedience to His commands, then eyes need opening.  If the Bible can remain on the shelf gathering dust while we are drawn as by a magnet to programs on TV and wireless; if prayer is a dull, irksome task we can live without, oh how we are missing the true meaning of life!
If you are one who once felt the holy flame within, once viewed unseen realities, but some earthly goal, some material advantage blurred the vision, kneel just now and pray for a quickening of your spiritual senses.  Pray with the poet, D. A. Simons,

O Master, canst Thou re-inspire
This tepid heart and re-commission me?
Then shall I taste again the holy fire
That swept me once with such intensity!
And so shall I, dear lord, again acquire
A new enthusiastic love for Thee!

                        Mine Eyes Beheld The King

Long with sin my eyes were holden, weary years in blindness spent;
Wasted were my hours so golden, all my life on pleasure bent;
Till One came in love and mercy, touched mine eyes and sight did bring.
At His feet I fell and worshipped when mine eyes beheld the King.

It was Christ, the Holy Jesus, Who once walked in Galilee;
Now the ris’n, triumphant Jesus, Who had thus brought sight to me.
Brighter shone the sun above me; sweeter seemed the birds to sing;
All the earth took on new beauty when mine eyes beheld the King.

How my load of cares fell from me, how my doubts and fears were stilled;
And that restless void and longing with His precious love was filled.
How I felt my sins forgiven, felt new life within me spring!
I became an heir of Heaven when mine eyes beheld the King.

Day by day He’s waiting for me, holds my hands and guides my feet;
Ever in my ear He whispers words of comfort wondrous sweet.
Do you wonder I’m rejoicing, wonder that I shout and sing?
For I’m living in His presence, and I still behold the King.
—Mrs. C. H. Morris.

A Reader Writes . . .

THE LORD ADDED

By Mrs. Ruby Knight

As we look around the Church of the Living God today, there is much to fill us with gloom and despair.  Prayerlessness prevails, and a greater desire to gain the approval of our friends and neighbors than to win God’s approval.  We read and even study the Bible but fail to carry out its precepts in spite of the words of the Lord Jesus, “If ye love Me, keep my commandments.”  If disobedience cost King Saul his crown, how much and how great is our loss by our lowering of God’s standard for Christian living.  One might wonder what all this is leading up to, and briefly it is this:  the greatest tragedy of this day is the lack of converts among us.
We have very few spiritual new born babes, and that in spite of all our activities.  There is no lack of money, time or energy which we spend in our efforts to reach the lost.  We pamper them and pander to them in every form of meeting and entertainment, seeking to make them feel at home and in fellowship with us.  In fact, we have left nothing, according to human reasoning, undone in order to increase our numbers.  This is  where we have failed miserably and to put it very crudely, because we have no spiritual children we have started a vast campaign to adopt those we think suitable for the Kingdom of God.  Through our own carnal methods we are prepared to accept into our fellowship, those who have no experience of God’s saving grace and power in their lives.  God has His own method of adoption into the spiritual family by His Holy Spirit, and there is no substitute.
It has been argued time and time again that we must move with the times to attract the lost, but sin is still the same, the human heart is still the same and, thanks be to God, the remedy is still the same.  Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.”  May I refer you to some very interesting passages of Scripture in the Old Testament.  Rachel said to Jacob, “Give me children or else I die.”  And we read later that she died bearing the beloved Benjamin.  Oh, that we too shall lose all desire to live unless there are those born again by the Spirit of God and so added by God Himself!
Secondly, we read that a mixed multitude came up with the Israelites out of Egypt and it was this fleshly crowd that was used by satanic forces to bring about a spirit of discontent and thus cause Israel to murmur against God’s provision.  Of course, this mixed multitude could have no desire for heavenly manna, and so they caused the people of God to fall a-lusting after flesh.  They are a type of those who come in and join our ranks without any conviction of sin, and as they have never been truly born again how can they be expected to feed on angels’ food!  So many so-called converts have supposedly been brought into the fold by man-made methods that they must needs be entertained perpetually if we are to keep them.  If God in His Word has laid down rules for our guidance as to the methods to be adopted in bringing in the unsaved, who are we to devise other means!
Our so-called “Modern Evangelism” savors too much of self-effort and self-glorification, and must surely be distasteful to every discerning Christian.  We seem to want people to be comfortable and enjoy our services, when that is the last thing that should happen.  If the Holy Spirit brings great conviction of sin through the preaching of the Word, a state of repentance towards God and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ will follow.  When converts are brought in by doubtful methods, it naturally follows that they will find the prayer meeting and Bible Study distasteful.  What a difference when we adhere to God’s methods and follow His instructions!
If you read Acts Chapter 2, you will find that it was the Gospel preached in the power of the Holy Spirit that resulted in 3,000 souls being added to the Church.  The last verse of the chapter reads, “And the Lord added daily such as should be saved.”  If we continue to Acts Chapter 5, and read of the deception and detection of Ananias and Sapphira, we are told in verse 13, “And of the rest durst no man join himself to them.”
Dear readers, the foregoing remarks are not written in a spirit of harshness or unjust criticism but with a desire that we, by our methods, shall not rob God of His glory.  We need converts, how desperately we need them before the Lord comes again, but not at any price.  Jesus said, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.”  If we seek other methods of bringing them to God, we will only produce weak, sickly children, who will have to be nursed everlastingly.  We have our example in the Lord Jesus, when He spoke plainly to those who would follow Him.  They would need endurance, and this would come by enduement with power from on high.
There is no easy way to soul-winning and gaining converts.  Isaiah 66:8 says, “As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children,” and I pray that God Himself will help us to be willing to endure pain and anguish to the end that babes in Christ shall be born.  This is rarely a public function, but in private God can give us the spirit of prayer and supplication.  Paul says to the Galatians, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. 4:19).
The commission of the Lord Jesus to His disciples was to preach the Gospel and, as this is the power of God unto salvation, how foolish to think God will condone any other method.

          The Valley of Silence

I walk down the Valley of Silence,
Down the dim, voiceless valley alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God’s and my own!
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown.

Long ago was I weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago was I weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago was I weary of places
Where I met but the human and sin.

And still did I pine for the perfect,
And still found the false with the true;
I sought ’mid the human for Heaven,
But caught a mere glimpse of its blue;
And I wept when the clouds of the mortal
Veiled even that glimpse from my view.

And I toiled on, heart tired of the human
And I moaned ’mid the maze of men,
Till I knelt long ago at an altar.
And I heard a Voice call me; since then
I walk down the Valley of Silence,
That lies far beyond human ken.

Do you ask what I found in the Valley?
’Tis my trysting place with the Divine.
And I fell at the feet of the Holy
And above me a Voice said, “Be Mine!”
And there rose from the depths of my spirit
An echo, “My heart shall be Thine!”

Do you ask how I live in the Valley?
I weep, and I dream, and I pray;
But my tears are as sweet as the dewdrops
That fall on the roses in May;
And my prayer, like a perfume from censor,
Ascendeth to God, night and day.

In the hush of the Valley of Silence
I dream all the songs that I sing,
And the music flows down the deep Valley,
Till it finds a word for a wing
That to men, like the doves of the deluge,
The message of peace they may bring.

But far on the deep there are billows
That never shall break on the beach;
And I have heard songs in the silence
That never shall float into speech;
And I have had dreams in the Valley
Too lofty for language to reach.

And I have seen thoughts in the Valley—
Ah, me; how my spirit was stirred!
And they wear holy veils on their faces,
Their footsteps can scarcely be heard;
They pass through the Valley like virgins,
Too pure for the touch of a word.

Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by care?
It lieth afar between mountains,
And God and His angels are there—
And one is the dark Mount of Sorrow,
And one is the bright Mountain of Prayer.
—Abram J. Ryan in The Missionary Revivalist,
in Convention Herald.