Preach Repentance – Christian Message of Victory April-Jun 1973

The repentance we here condemn, may be known by the following marks:

1. It is superficial, and founded only upon the most vague ideas of our corruption:  hence, it cannot, like that of David and Jeremiah, trace sin to its source, and bewail the depravity of the whole heart.  Psa. 51:5; Jer. 17:9.
2. It is pharisaical, regarding only outward sins.  The righteousness of the Pharisees rested upon the most trifling observances, while they neglected those weighty commands of the Law, which respect the love of God and our neighbor, (Matt. 23:23).  They afflicted themselves, when they had not scrupulously paid the tenths of their herbs:  but they smote not upon their breasts, when they had rejected the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the same dangerous circumstances are those penitents of the present day, who are less sorrowful on account of having offended God and rejected Christ, than that they are become objects of ridicule, contempt, or punishment, by the commission of some impious or dishonorable action.  We frequently hear these false penitents bewailing the condition to which they have reduced themselves, and giving vent to the most passionate expressions of sorrow.  But, when are they seen to afflict themselves, because they have not been wholly devoted to God?  Or when do they shed a single tear at the recollection that they have not cherished their neighbor as themselves?  Are they ever heard to lament the want of that faithin Christ, which worketh by love?  (Gal. 5:6).  Are they ever engaged in seeking after that communion of saints, by which believers become of one heart and one soul?

Alas!  so far are they from this, that they continue equally tranquil under the maledictions of the Gospel, as under those of the Law.  They hear, without terror, those dreadful words of the Apostle, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha” (1 Cor. 16:22).  And though they neither love nor know Him, yet they vainly look upon themselves, as godly mourners and unfeigned penitents.

3. This repentance is unfruitful,inasmuch as those who repent after this manner are utter strangers to compunction of heart.  None of these are constrained to cry out, “Men  and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37).  They come not to the Redeemer among such as “are weary and heavy laden” (Matt. 11:28).  They have no experience of that godly sorrow by which the true penitent dies to sin; and so far are they from being born again of the Spirit, that they neither expect nor desire any such regeneration.  In short, this repentance is rarely as sincere as that of Judas, who confessed his sin, justified the innocent, subdued his ruling passion, and returned the money he had so dearly obtained.

Evangelical repentance is an incomprehensible work to the generality of ministers.  Wherever it appears they are prepared to censure it, and are earnest in exhorting men to flee from it, rather than request it as a gift from God.  Thus, when they behold anyone truly mourning under a sense of sin, smiting upon his breast, with the publican, stripping off, with St. Paul, the covering of his own righteousness, and inquiring, with the convicted jailor, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30), they suppose these to be certain signs of a deep melancholy.  They imagine the conversation of some enthusiast has driven the man to despair, and will not scruple to affirm that he has lost the proper use of his reason.  So true it is, that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14), nor is even able to form any just ideas of that repentance which is the first duty imposed upon us by the Gospel, and the first step forward to that holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.

EDITORIAL
THE HEART’S POTENTIAL FOR EVIL

Satan’s most effective instrument for evil is the contents of every natural heart—that is the heart still uncleansed by the blood of Christ.
“The devil plays with the things in me.”  These are the startling words of a small girl whom the writer knows very well.  The only MAN Who had nothing within that the enemy could use, was Jesus Christ Who declared, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.”  But at the same time He declared to His disciple, Peter, “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.”  Wheat is sifted for use either as food or as seed.

1. The human heart is Satan’s tool kit.  Satan, seeking for an instrument for the accomplishing of the dirtiest job in history, found the heart of Judas Iscariot to be the perfect tool.  “And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him” (John 13:2).

Later, the Spirit-filled church was invading the world with the message of the Resurrected Lord.  The arch enemy must find a weapon or tool with which to spoil the greatest advance of righteousness in all history.  He found what he wanted—the tool of a lying spirit in the heart of a professed disciple.  “But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?” (Acts 5:3).
Some time later, Stephen became the first Christian martyr and Satan selected a new agent whose heart had become the scene of an internal war, inspiring Saul of Tarsus to “make havoc” of the church.  Here we see the tool of “hatred” lodged in the heart of a man with a perfect record in the Jewish religious community.  But we praise God that this man, when faced by his persecuted Lord on the way to Damascus, yielded himself to the forgiving, cleansing and Spirit-filling processes of God and became a chosen vessel to war against the kingdoms he had been seeking to extend.  Praise God.  This chosen one was able to spot other instruments of Satan when they confronted the work of God he was undertaking.  One example was Elymas the sorcerer, whom Paul called “thou child of the devil” (Acts 13:10).

2. The human heart is the seed plot of bitterness.  The writer to the Hebrews exhorted the church to “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).  The alternative to this pursuit of holiness is clearly warned against in the very next verse.  “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.”  Let us examine a few samples of the devastating crop of jealousy that spoiled one promising picture after another in Bible history:

*Cain slew Abel because of jealousy.
*Joseph’s brethren sold him into slavery because of jealousy.
*Saul hunted David for ten years to slay him because of jealousy.
*Daniel was thrown into the den of lions because of jealousy.
*The Jews delivered Jesus to Pilot because of jealousy.

And so today in the Church:

*Gossip works havoc in the assembly because of jealousy.
*Splits, scandals, walkouts and grudges enervate and paralyze the church for envy.
*New converts are divided from spiritual fathers for very jealousy.
*Sinners are scandalized and made bitter because of the fruits of envy among Christians.  (See 1 Cor. 3).

3. The human heart is a cesspool of iniquity.  A glimpse of what we see in our own heart and afterwards in other hearts as they are known by their fruits, is a very shocking and distressing sight indeed.  If it were not for the witness to salvation and holiness and the joy God gives even in our journey through this vale of tears, we would be so distressed at the fruits of the carnal heart that we could not be happy.  Nothing gives a true soldier of the Cross more of a burden for prayer than the glimpse of what is in the carnal heart.  One preacher declared that conviction for inbred sin as he had experienced it, was the most dread illness to which a human being can be subjected.  Thank God, the “peaceable fruits of righteousness” follow such a glimpse if the convicted one looks alone to Calvary for the holiness and victory which come from Christ alone.  John Wesley declared, “The moment I take my eyes off Christ, I am all unholiness.”

Jeremiah speaks of this cesspool thus:  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:  who can know it?”
And Jesus went further.  He know what was in man.  He could see into man’s heart.  He can see the inside of your heart and mine.  He has declared:  “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:  all these evil things come from within and defile the man” (Mark 7:21-23).
The reader says, we hope, that he is seeing these awful things.  What is his hope?  There is only one cause for hope.  It is seen in the following Scriptures:
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
“Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.  Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach” (Heb. 13:12-13).
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.  That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27).
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly:  and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 5:23).

PURGING, CLEANSING AND FILLING

By J. D. Drysdale

In Gospel Edition No. 88, we ran the story of Rev. Drysdale’s conversion.  We now continue the relating of his personal journey through God’s purging, cleansing process.
A truly born again soul begins immediately to manifest the fruits of the Spirit; but, before long, he becomes conscious of something in his heart which spoils his testimony and cripples his usefulness; something within him which is aptly described by George Fox as “something which would not keep sweet.”  It is described in Romans 8:7 as the “carnal mind which is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”  Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians 3:1 says, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.”  There is the natural man (unregenerate), there is the babe in Christ (the carnal Christian), but there is also the spiritual or sanctified Christian.
Under the illumination of the Holy Ghost, I began to consecrate my whole life to Christ Who had saved me, for I longed to be truly spiritual.  One of the last things to be surrendered to the Lord was my music.  For weeks that unmistakable inner voice kept saying, “Will you be a society entertainer or a soul-winner?  Will you let Me have that gift entirely for My use and My glory?”  I gladly let it go to the Giver.  This meant a complete break with my musical friends.  From that day to this, my voice has never been used for anything save His work and glory.
The deeper my consecration, the more intense became my hunger for all the fullness of God.  I knew, in a very real sense, what my Lord meant when He said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6).  Dead souls, like dead bodies, neither hunger nor thirst.  My soul was alive and panted for God in all His divine fullness; I cared not whether I lived or died:  I wanted God more than friends or fame or fortune, yea, more even than food; my whole soul was crying out for God as the hart for the water brooks.
Then suddenly, one day some months after my new birth, on a country road between Blantyre and Uddingston, the Holy Ghost fell upon me, purging, cleansing and filling.  It was an unforgettable day, when it seemed as if the billows of God’s pure love rolled over my soul.  It seemed to come in wave after wave of pure, holy love.  I praised and magnified the God of Heaven for such unspeakable glory.  Love, love, love!  I shouted and praised God with my whole being.  My experience is aptly described in Isaiah 12:1, 3-6.  “And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise Thee:  though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me. . . . Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.  And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His name is exalted.  Sing unto the Lord; for He hath done excellent things; Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion:  for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.”  In some measure I realized something of the meaning of the words, “His working which worketh in me mightily” (Col. 1:29).
All that follows in this autobiography is but the progress and out-working of that tremendous crisis hour.  When Jesus after His resurrection met with His disciples in that upper room, He breathed upon them, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22).  But that was not Pentecost.  It was to these same men He said, “Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49); and again, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you:  and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
When will the church believe and teach that there is a difference between the birth of the Spirit and the baptism with the Spirit?  The church need not expect Pentecostal results, if she fights with carnal weapons.  Oh, that some voice would call her back to Pentecost!  The need of the hour is not so much missions to sinners, but missions to the church to call her back to the upper room and holiness.  God calls sinners to repentance, and believers to holiness.
After that mighty baptism with His Spirit, the language of my heart was, and has been ever since, “Spirit of God, my Teacher be.”  He Who says to the sinner, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” says to the pardoned sinner, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly of heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
God has a plan and a purpose for every life, and if we would know them, we must abide in the school of the Holy Ghost.  The baptism is only the crisis and must be followed by a life-long process.  There must be many, and ever-increasing, anointings of the Spirit; we must recognize that we must be constantly “filled” with the Spirit.  There is one mighty purifying baptism, but there are many, and ever-necessary, fillings, if the believer is to function for God in His Church and fulfill the purpose of His creation and redemption.
And so, as I learned to walk with my Lord, He began very gently to reveal to me step by step as I was able to take it in, His plan and purpose for my life.  First of all I made the discovery, by the Spirit of revelation, that with the baptism of the Spirit, He had given me two gifts of the Spirit:  faith, and the discerning of spirits—two very necessary gifts to enable me to fit into His plan for my life’s work.  When I speak of the gift of faith, I do not mean, nor do I think the Scriptures teach, that such faith is what is commonly called saving or sanctifying faith, but faith as a gift for a specific purpose (1 Cor. 12:9).
I soon began to sense that He was calling me to live a life of absolute dependence upon Him for things temporal as well as spiritual.  I did not respond to this at once, as I wanted to be perfectly clear that it was His voice.  For a whole year the Spirit searched my heart and I searched the Scriptures, often into the small hours of the morning until I was thoroughly convinced that God was calling me to trust Him only and entirely for my daily support.  I shall never forget how He lit up Luke 12, after which I could never doubt Him, and I gave up my bank book and insurance policies.  From that day to this, God is my witness when I say I have never had anxiety about money.
One test was permitted of God just at this time to prove whether I could trust Him implicitly, no matter what happened.  After I had parted with my bank book and insurance policies, I was suddenly struck with a most violent pain in the groin, so severe that I had to stop my work—for I was still in business; and as I lay in bed suffering acutely, who should visit me but the superintendent of the Insurance Company!  He came to reason with me because of what he thought was my foolish action and remarked, “See, you need our help already.”  Then he followed it up by saying, “Spurgeon and General Booth believed in Insurance.”  “Yes,” I replied, “but I am not following either; I believe I am following God’s purpose for my life.”
He left me, feeling doubtless that I was a hopeless case and rather peculiar.  In less than an hour’s time the pain had gone and I arose to attend to my business.  I have only once had a return of it, and that very slightly.  I was then anointed in the Name of the Lord and healed, and it has never come back again.
In this same connection, I remember a wealthy friend of mine, much my senior, when she heard that I had launched out upon the Lord for things temporal, asking me, “Would you advise me to do the same?”  to which I replied, “Certainly not.  You must get your own clear guidance in such matters.”  There have been so many tragic happenings through people becoming a kind of ‘amateur providence’ to such tender consciences, sometimes for their own personal gain, that one trembles even to make known such secret and intimate personal dealings with God, lest others become imitators without that gift of faith which makes such living possible.  Let it be clearly understood that no one who really lives by faith sponges off other people; his appeal is direct to God.
At this particular time, I gave myself to the reading, and study of God’s Word, entirely cutting out all other kinds of reading that I might get to know the Scriptures, of which I found myself very ignorant.  Since then, I have read the Bible through every year for over forty years, apart altogether from specialized study, for a minister cannot effectively use the Sword of the Spirit unless he is familiar with his weapon.
God also laid down certain life principles to which, by His grace, I have held steadily down the years.  One was that I was never to pull wires or push doors, or to go where I was not invited.  What a safeguard this principle is against jealousy!  The Lord made it perfectly clear that when He wanted me, He would know where to find me.
How wonderful to be yoked with Christ; just to keep step with Him and to have no ambitions outside of His will!  He is as it were the old ox, we are the young ones; if we walk with Him, we shall find that His yoke is easy; but if we run ahead, or lag behind, we shall find that the yoke chafes.  Walking with Him, we shall not be burdened with sin or sins, but we shall know something of His burden—the burden of souls—and of that burden He will bear the heavier end.  As we learn something of His compassion for a lost world, we shall also learn that it is easier to carry the burden of souls than the burden of sins.—From the book, Prophet of Holiness.  Used by permission.

CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST

By Eldon Fuhrman

I am reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians in chapter two, verses 19-21:  “For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.  I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not frustrate the grace of God:  for if righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”
At the heart of the Christian message stands the cross of Christ.  The Apostle Paul says that according to Col. 1:20, “Christ made peace through the blood of his cross” and when he wrote to the Corinthians, he said, he “determined not to know any thing among them save Christ and him crucified.”
It was G. Campbell Morgan who, some years ago, said, “The cross interpreted by the resurrection is the Gospel by Paul.”  The cross of Christ is not only at the heart of Christ’s message; it is at the heart of the Christian experience as well.  It is true that our sinful self was crucified with Christ on the cross, but that is more than an event of history.  There our redemption was provided for us objectively.  Here we are talking about an experience of heart when redemption is personalized within us subjectively.
This is in keeping with Paul’s writing elsewhere, for example, in Rom. 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin”; or in the book of Galatians 5:24, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts”; again in Gal. 6:14, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
These references remind us of this subjective experience which he calls “being crucified with Christ.”  I ask you to note the fact that in Galatians 2:20, there are eight personal pronouns.  Paul is giving his testimony and is telling us something of his spiritual career in respect to himself.  In this one verse he tells us four things.

1. There is a sinfulness of the self which must be destroyed.  “I am crucified with Christ.”  What does this mean?  Let us remind ourselves that it does not mean a crucifixion to self-consciousness for he continues using the personal pronoun, but it surely does mean a crucifixion to self-centeredness.  But even yet we may wonder what Paul is really saying and he helps us elsewhere.  He gives us more of his own autobiography in Philippians.  First Paul speaks of himself in the following manner, “Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless”  (Phil. 3:5)!

Now, as you look at that you ask, What is wrong with that?  This sounds like someone intensely religious, someone whose whole life was above reproach.  He even goes so far as to say that he was blameless in respect to the external nature of the law.  But there is one fatal flaw as it comes out in the next verse.  “What things were gain to me,  those I counted loss for Christ.”  Yes, Paul had a good religious life, but it was lived for himself, by himself and unto himself and this, of course, was the reason for the vast change which came later.  One day he met the man full of the Holy Spirit who out-lived, out-loved and out-died his enemies—Stephen, the martyr.  As the young man, Saul, stood by, consenting unto his death while others stoned him with stones, Saul’s world came crashing down.  This life, which he thought was impeccable and invulnerable, shattered under the mighty blow of the love of a Spirit-filled man.
We probably remember what he did next.  He made havoc of the church.  He persecuted Christians; he did his best to compel them to blaspheme.  He went from one place to the other seeking to indict them.  Then on the road to Damascus, a marvelous event occurred which set in motion the train of events which led to this testimony.  There he met Jesus Christ.  He met Him not only as a man, but he met Him as ultimate Truth, ultimate Love and ultimate Goodness.  Saul did three things.
First of all he fell in surrender.  Next he enquired in wonder, “Who art Thou, Lord?”  Then he submitted in meekness.  “What wilt thou have me to do?”  From there, on the outskirts of Damascus, Paul went on into the city.  He tarried there for three days.  Ananias came to him that he might receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.  A short time later, he went out into Arabia to study Jesus Christ and to understand the message he was to proclaim.  And eventually he went on into the open road of life and service, particularly as God’s emissary to the Gentiles.
Thus the wicked Saul became the witness, Paul.  The murderer became a martyr, the old Saul died that the new Paul might live.  This is what he means when he says, “I am crucified with Christ.”  Need I tell you that each of us needs to be able to say the same thing?  Just as essential, just as necessary is it for us to be crucified with Christ as it was for him.  Crucifixion is crucial.  It stands for a shameful death but it also stands for a spiritual deliverance, and it leads to a successful dynamic.
“I am crucified with Christ” is God’s way of making the self free from sin, God’s way of making the self someone we can live with.  So we see first of all, as Paul testifies, there is a sinfulness of the self which needs to be destroyed.
But we go on to note the second matter in his testimony, which reads as follows:  “Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me!”  As we read these words we become aware that not only is there a sinfulness of the self which needs to be destroyed, but

2. there is also an emptiness of the self which must be satisfied.  Anyone who understands the life of Paul knows that he had an obsession with Jesus Christ.  “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  Those are his words as he wrote to the Philippians.  Crucifixion alone is not enough.  There must be its corollary, the resurrection.

But we are talking about an emptiness of the self which must be satisfied.  Satisfied with what?  Satisfied with Christ.  It has been said that emptiness is the central neurosis of our time and wherever this emptiness is found, meaninglessness is never far away.  But, thank God, in Christ all of this can be changed.  As we read here, “nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,” we discover that there is to be a new integration of our lives centered in Jesus Christ.  This was in Paul’s mind when he said in 2 Cor. 5:14, “For the love of Christ constraineth us,” and it is no longer I that live but “Christ liveth in me.”  Friends, do you understand that language?  Do you know what it means to have Christ living in you?  Can you say, “It is no longer I but Christ”?
I remind you, that, first of all, Christ gave His life for us as an atonement for sin.  That, of course, is what He did on the cross on our behalf at a certain time in history.  But subsequent to that, after His resurrection, after His ascension, after His being seated at the right hand of the Father, then it was that He sent the Holy Spirit.  On the Day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out, there was a new Christ-consciousness vividly present in the lives of those who were in the Upper Room.  And as we view it in the light of all Scripture, we discover that through the Holy Spirit, Christ not only gave His life for us, but now He offers to give His life to us as the answer to our loneliness.  Then, as we receive Christ as the answer to our loneliness, He then seeks to relive His life in us as the assurance of daily victory.  So we have three things from Christ.  1. His life for us as an atonement for sin.  2. His life to us as the answer to our loneliness.  3. His life in us as the assurance of daily victory.
Throughout his writings, Paul demonstrates a very deep and intimate relationship with Christ.  In Romans 6:6, he speaks of being “crucified with him”; in Romans 6:4, of being “buried with him”; in Romans 6:8, of being “dead with him,” of “living with him”; in Romans 8:17, of “suffering with him”; in 2 Timothy 2:12, of “reigning with him” and then back in Romans 8:17, of being “heirs with him,” and “glorified with him.”  What does it all mean?  It means that for the Christian, for the one who has been crucified with Christ, henceforth our lives are lived in fellowship with Him.  But it is a fellowship that takes on a partnership.  From here on, it is as if we were one—“Christ in us the hope of glory”—and with that fellowship and with that partnership, there comes a deep, profound, lasting sense of worship with Christ.
It was Colonel Brengle who, on one occasion, told of a certain person coming to one of his meetings, coming to the altar and receiving a work of the Holy Spirit called entire sanctification.  He missed the services for the following days, then he returned and gave the testimony.  “Friends, in the last few days, I have been so tangled up with Jesus, I have hardly known which was which.”  Here then is the answer to our emptiness.
Now, we note the third part of Paul’s testimony:  “the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

3. There is a naturalness of the self which needs to be expressed.  Friends, to be crucified with Christ does not mean that God removes the self.  We could not be a self without the self.  God does not remove the self.  He redeems the self and then He releases the self to be its own true and proper self.  That “life which I now live in the flesh.”  This tells us that every life which is so related to Christ, as Paul describes here, is to have its own individuality.  “I live.”  “I live in the flesh.”  It is this man, coming into his own, full, personal selfhood.

It is not only a life of individuality; it is a life or originality.  Until Christ really captures us, really claims us and cleanses us, and communes within us, we tend to be echoes of someone else.  We simply follow the pattern somebody else has set.  Of course, there are those things where we have our likenesses, but we also need to have our own originality.  And this is when it can take place, and every life adds to the human variety.  The Body of Christ is one; the members are many.  And within that one body, there is a place for each of us to express our own original individuality, and to add to the unity of the Body, our own personal expression of variety.
And then it is not only a matter of originality, but it is also a life that has its own special possibility.  The life which I now live in the flesh is, to be sure, an earthen vessel, as described in Scripture, but the very fact that it is an earthen vessel helps to enhance the heavenly treasure.  This relationship is one that makes it possible for Christians to do more easily what they are supposed to do anyway:  to love, to give, to pray, to rejoice, to serve, to forgive, to hope, to grow and so on.  These are the things that come so naturally now, as Christ lives in us.
 

4. There is a devotedness of the self which needs to be fulfilled.  “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  This devotedness of the self is expressed especially in our living “by faith in the Son of God who loved us.”

In Galatians 5:6 Paul states, “In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”  Faith worketh by love.  We were made to believe and when we do so, then faith can express itself in terms of devotion, in terms of love.  This is what Paul has been coming to all through in this testimony.  Has he been crucified with Christ?  Yes.  Is he living a new live in Christ?  Yes.  Is he living a life uniquely his own?  To be sure, he is.  But what is all this intended to do?  To bring us to a place where we live by faith and faith alone:  faith, not in ourselves, but faith in the Son of God Who warrants our faith because He loves us and has given Himself for us.
The life of faith is a life of simplicity.  A life of self-effort becomes complicated, and increasingly difficult to sustain.  But the life of faith simply says, “I have nothing to do but the will of God,” and hence all the life becomes something that can be managed again.
But it is not only a life of simplicity.  It is a life of liberty as well.  Throughout this Galatian letter, Paul has emphasized that there is a definite relationship between faith and freedom.  And our freedom in Christ Jesus, as he speaks of it here, is a freedom founded in the grace of God and a freedom realized by faith in the Son of God.
It is a life of liberty, and certainly it is a life of victory.  “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith!”  Our faith is first of all faith in a sovereign Creator.  It is faith also in the Holy Spirit as Comforter, but in a special way it centralizes upon the central Person of the Godhead, faith in Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord.
“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:  for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”  So I would say, “Let God and let go.  Stop trying!  Start trusting.”
Let God, and then you go through the same fourfold steps:  1. Crucified with Christ—delivered from the sinfulness of self;  2. Living in Christ, delivered from the emptiness which you have known before;  3. Living now in the present life, fulfilling your own true vocation;  4. Living by faith, finding a real answer to your heart’s cry.  This will give you a self fit to live with, a faith fit to live by and a task fit to live for; and, best of all, it may be yours now.
(Dr. Eldon Fuhrman has graciously given permission to reprint this sermon from a tape.  He is president of Wesley Biblical Seminary, of Jackson, Mississippi, USA.)

MUST WE SIN IN THOUGHT?  WORD?  DEED?

The accompanying article is by Robert Barclay, theologian for the early Quakers.  Barclay, having become a convinced Quaker, endeavored to put into writing the revelations God so graciously granted to George Fox and his helpers.  To King Charles 2 and to all the clergy and Doctors, Professors and students of Divinity in the Universities and schools, he wrote his “Apology.”  In the foreword to this theological thesis, he said of the early Quakers, “God hath laid aside the wise and learned, and the disputers of this world, and hath chosen a few despicable and unlearned instruments (as to letter learning) as He did fishermen of old, to publish His pure and naked truth, and to free it of those mists and fogs wherewith the clergy have clouded it, that the people might admire and maintain them.”  This article sets forth the reasonableness of believing that a holy God in His holy Word invites His people to claim and possess a holy life.
I affirm that after a man has arrived to such a condition, in which a man may not sin, he yet may sin; I will nevertheless not deny but there may be a state attainable in this life, in which to do righteousness may become so natural to regenerate souls, that in the stability of this condition they cannot sin.  Others may perhaps speak more certainly of this state, as having attained to it.  For myself, I shall speak modestly, as acknowledging not to have arrived at it; yet I dare not deny it, because it seems so positively to be asserted by the apostle:  1 John 3:9, “He that is born of God sinneth not, neither can he, because the seed of God remaineth in him.”
The controversy being thus stated, which will serve to obviate objections, I shall proceed,

1. To show the absurdity of that doctrine that pleads for sin for term of life, even in the saints.
2. To prove this doctrine of perfection from many pregnant testimonies of the Holy Scriptures.
3. To answer the arguments and objections of our opposers.

 

1. This doctrine, viz., That the saints neither can nor ever will be free of sinning in this life, is inconsistent with the wisdom of God, and with His power and glorious majesty, “who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity” (Hab. 1:13); Who having purposed in Himself to gather to Him, that should worship Him, and be witnesses for Him on earth, a chosen people, doth also no doubt sanctify and purify them.  For God hath no delight in iniquity, but abhors transgression; and though He regard man in transgression so far as to pity him, and afford him means to come out of it; yet He loves him not, neither delights in him, as he is joined thereunto.  Wherefore if man must be always joined to sin, then God would always be at a distance from him; as it is written, Isaiah 59:2, “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you”; whereas on the contrary, the saints are said to “partake,” even while here, “of the divine nature” ( 2 Pet. 1:4), and to be “one Spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:14).

But God is light, and every sin is darkness in a measure.  What greater stain then can there be than this upon God’s wisdom, as if He had been wanting to prepare a means whereby His children might perfectly serve and worship Him, or had not provided a way whereby they might serve Him in anything, but that they must withal still serve the devil no less, yea, more than Himself?  For “he that sinneth is the servant of sin” (Rom. 6:16), and every sin is an act of service and obedience to the devil.
So then if the saints sin daily in thought, word, and deed, yea, if the very service they offer to God be sin, surely they serve the devil more than they do God; for besides that they give the devil many entire services, without mixture of the least grain to God, they give God not the least service in which the devil hath not a large share:  and if their prayers and all their spiritual performances be sinful, the devil is as much served by them in these as God, and in most of them much more, since they confess that many of them are performed without the leadings and influence of God’s Spirit.
Now who would not account him a foolish master among men, who being able to do it, and also desirous it might be so, yet would not provide a way whereby his children and servants might serve him more entirely than his avowed enemy; or would not guard against their serving of him, but be so imprudent and unadvised in his contrivance, that whatever way his servants and children served him, they should no less, yea, often much more, serve his enemy?  What may we then think of that doctrine that would infer this folly upon the Omnipotent and only Wise God?

1. It is inconsistent with the justice of God.  For since He requires purity from His children, and commands them to abstain from every iniquity, so frequently and precisely as shall hereafter appear, and since His “wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,” it must needs follow, that He hath capacitated man to answer His will, or else that He requires more than He has given power to perform.  This is to declare Him openly unjust, and, with the slothful servant, to be a hard Master.  We have elsewhere spoken of the injustice these men ascribe to God, in making Him to damn the wicked, to whom they allege He never afforded any means of being good; but this is yet an aggravation more irrational and inconsistent, to say that God will not afford to those, whom He hath chosen to be His own (whom they confess He loveth) the means to please Him.  What can follow then from so strange a doctrine?

This imperfection in the saints either proceeds from God, or from themselves.  If it proceeds from them, it must be because they are short in improving or making use of the power given them, as indeed it is by the help of that power; but this our adversaries deny:  they are then not to be blamed for the imperfection and continuing in sin, since it is not possible for them to do otherwise.
If it be not of themselves, it must be of God, Who hath not seen meet to allow them grace in that degree to produce that effect:  and what is this but to attribute to God the height of injustice, to make Him require His children to forsake sin, and yet not to afford them sufficient means for so doing?  Surely this makes God more unrighteous than wicked men, “who if” (as Christ saith) “their children require bread of them, will not give them a stone; or instead of fish, a serpent.”  But these men confess we ought to seek of God power to redeem us from sin, and yet believe they are never to receive such a power; such prayers then cannot be in faith, but are all vain.  Is not this to make God as unjust to His children as Pharaoh was to the Israelites, in requiring brick, and not giving them straw?  But blessed be God, He deals not so with those that truly trust in Him, and wait upon Him, as these men vainly imagine:  for such faithful ones find of a truth that His grace is sufficient for them, and know how by His power and Spirit to overcome the evil one.

1. This evil doctrine is highly injurious to Jesus Christ, and greatly derogates from the power and virtue of His sacrifice, and renders His coming and ministry, as to the great end of it, ineffectual.  For Christ, as for other ends, so principally He appeared for the removing of sin, for the gathering a righteous generation, that might serve the Lord in purity of mind, and walk before Him in fear, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and that evangelical perfection which the law could not do.

Hence He is said, “to have given himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Tit. 2:14).  This is certainly spoken of the saints while upon earth; but, contrary thereunto, these men affirm that we are never redeemed from all iniquity, and so make Christ’s giving of Himself for us void and ineffectual, and give the apostle Paul the lie plainly, by denying that “Christ purifieth to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”  How are they “zealous of good works,” who are ever committing evil ones?  How are they a “purified people,” that are still in impurity, as they are that daily sin, unless sin be accounted no impurity?
Moreover it is said expressly, that “for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil; and ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins” (1 John 3:5,8).  But these men make this purpose of none effect; for they will not have the Son of God to destroy the works of the devil in His children in this world, neither will they at all believe that He was manifested to take away our sins, seeing they plead a necessity of always living in them.
And lest any should wrest this place of the apostle, as if it were spoken only of taking away the guilt of sin, as if it related not to this life, the apostle, as if of purpose to obviate such an objection, adds in the following verses, “Whosoever abideth in him, sinneth not, etc.”  I hope then they sin not daily in thought, word, and deed.  “Let no man deceive you:  he that doeth righteousness, is righteous, even as he is righteous:  he that committeth sin is of the devil”; but he that sinneth daily in thought, word, and deed, committeth sin; how comes such a one then to be the child of God?  And if Christ was manifested to take away sin, how strangely do they overturn the doctrine of Christ that deny that it is ever taken away here!  And how injurious are they to the efficacy and power of Christ’s appearance!
Came not Christ to gather a people out of sin into righteousness; from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of the dear Son of God?  And are not they that are thus gathered by Him His servants, His children, His brethren, His friends?  As He was, so are they to be in this world, holy, pure, and undefiled.  And doth not Christ still watch over them, stand by them, pray for them, and preserve them by His power and Spirit, walk in them, and dwell among them; even as the devil on the other hand doth among the reprobate ones?  How comes it then that the servants of Christ are less His servants than the devil’s are his?
Or is Christ unwilling to have His servants thoroughly pure?  This were gross blasphemy to assert, contrary to many Scriptures.  Is He not able by His power to preserve and enable His children to serve Him?  This were no less blasphemous to affirm of Him, concerning Whom the Scriptures declare, That He “has overcome sin, death, hell, and the grave, and triumphed over them openly, and that all power in Heaven and earth is given to him.”
Certainly if the saints sin daily in thought, word, and deed, as these men assert, they serve the devil daily, and are subject to his power; and so he prevails more than Christ doth, and holds the servants of Christ in bondage, whether Christ will or not.  But how greatly then doth it contradict the end of Christ’s coming, as it is expressed by the apostle, “Even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word:  that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy, and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27).  Now if Christ hath really thus answered the thing He came for, then the members of this church are not always sinning in thought, word, and deed, or there is no difference betwixt being sanctified and unsanctified, clean and unclean, holy and unholy, being daily blemished with sin, and being without blemish.

1. This doctrine renders the work of the ministry, the preaching of the word, the writing of the Scripture and the prayers of holy men altogether useless and ineffectual.  As to the first, Pastors and teachers are said to be “given for the perfecting of the saints, etc., until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of Christ” (Eph. 4:11).  Now if there be a necessity of sinning daily, and in all things then there can be no perfection; for such as do so cannot be esteemed perfect.  And if for effectuating this perfection in the saints the ministry be appointed and disposed of God, do not such as deny the possibility hereof render the ministry useless, and of no profit?

Seeing there can be no other true use assigned, but to lead people out of sin into righteousness.  If so be these ministers assure us that we need never expect to be delivered from it, do not they render their own work needless?  What needs preaching against sin, for the reproving of which all preaching is, if it can never be forsaken?  Our adversaries are exalters of the Scriptures in words, much crying up their usefulness and perfection:  now the apostle tells us, that the “Scriptures are for making the man of God perfect” (2 Tim. 3:17); and if this be denied to be attainable in this life, then the Scriptures are of no profit; for in the other life we shall not have use for them.
It renders the prayers of the saints altogether useless, seeing themselves do confess they ought to pray daily that God would deliver them from evil and free them from sin, by the help of His Spirit and grace, while in this world.  But though we might suppose this absurdity to follow, that their prayers are without faith, yet that were not so much if it did not infer the like upon the holy apostles, who prayed earnestly for this end, and therefore no doubt believed it attainable, Col. 4:12.  “Labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect,” etc.  1 Thess. 3:13 and 5:23, etc.

1. This doctrine is contrary to common reason and sense.  For the two opposite principles, whereof the one rules in the children of darkness, the other in the children of light, are sin and righteousness.  As they are respectively leavened and actuated by them, so they are accounted either as reprobated or justified, seeing it is abomination in the sight of God, either to justify the wicked, or condemn the just.  Now to say that men cannot be so leavened by the one, as to be delivered from the other, is in plain words to affirm that sin and righteousness are consistent; and that a man may be truly termed righteous though he be daily sinning in everything he doeth; and then what difference betwixt good and evil?  Is not this to fall into the great abomination of putting light for darkness, and calling good evil, and evil good?

Since they say the very best actions of God’s children are defiled and polluted; and that those that sin daily in thought, word, and deed, are good men and women, the saints and holy servants of the holy, pure God.  Can there be anything more repugnant than this to common reason?  Since the subject is still denominated from that accident that doth most influence it; as a wall is called white when there is much whiteness, and black when  there is much blackness, and such like:  but when there is more unrighteousness in a man than righteousness, that man ought rather to be denominated unrighteous than righteous.
Then surely if every man sin daily in thought, word, and deed, and that in his sins there is no righteousness at all, and that all his righteous actions are polluted and mixed with sin, then there is in every man more unrighteousness than righteousness; and so no man ought to be called righteous, no man can be said to be sanctified, or washed.  Where are then the children of God?  Where are the purified ones?  Where are they who were sometimes unholy, but now holy:  that sometimes were darkness, but now are light in the Lord?
“O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 8:24).
Aspiring souls have lifted imploring hands to Heaven for a complete deliverance from the sinful plague of their own hearts.  These have been found in every age and in every land.  It is our purpose in these pages to array the evidence both of the belief concerning victory and the testimony to the possession of such victory.  It is never by any self-effort, personal merit or immaculate record, but through the rich provision afforded at Calvary, when Christ shed His precious blood that He might sanctify the people.

GOD DOES NOT CODDLE HIS SAINTS

By Mrs. E. F. Harvey

“These are they which came out of great tribulation” (Rev. 7:14).
“All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12).
“If ye were of the world, the world would love his own:  but because ye are not of the world . . . therefore, the world hateth you” (John 15:19).

How firmly rooted in the human heart is the fond hope that in this wicked age, Christ’s church should triumph over the world, resulting in a large in-gathering of the world into the church, and a vindication of truth.  This hope animated the laborious efforts of A. T. Pierson, until one day sitting on a train with the saintly George Muller, he expressed such expectations.  For two hours George Muller opened the Scriptures and together they examined the sacred Book.  Mr. Pierson became convinced that it was not God’s intention during this dispensation to gather the world into the bosom of the church, but rather to call out from the world His true church.  This immediately changed A. T. Pierson’s entire outlook and his books reflect this fact.
Jesus explained to His disciples during those last days of His ministry among them, that as “called-out-ones” from the world, they would be misunderstood and despised because they were not of it. They would be persecuted, killed and put out of the synagogues.  They would be tested and tried for their loyalty to an unseen kingdom with its as yet invisible King Who would one day come again to set up His kingdom.  The history of the Church down through the two thousand years is a fulfillment of Christ’s prediction.  Those most prominent for their Christlike characters have been rejected and despised, and have been considered heretics.
I can remember that day so well, when in an agony of soul, I went for a quiet time up to the little sun house set in a secluded part of the garden.  I besought God to vindicate the truth and show His disapproval of wrong-doers.  God’s silence, when evil appeared triumphant, seemed unthinkable to me.  In stillness God answered me, “See how I tested My faithful servants in the past!  Think of Abraham waiting year after year for an answer to his faith.  Consider Moses who for forty years hid in the wilderness from an offended Pharaoh, misunderstood by his countrymen for whom he had counted the riches of Egypt nought that he might share their reproach!  Remember Joseph as he lay imprisoned in Egypt, sold by his jealous brethren, separated from his loving father, the sport of chance, so it must have seemed, when lied about in Potiphar’s household.  Take David, My anointed king, hunted by a jealous monarch who sought for his life for ten long years.”  I bowed my head, ashamed of my impatience with God’s silence.  Truth had seemed to me to be forever on the scaffold and error forever on the throne!  I left my place of prayer completely satisfied with God’s methods of dealing with His people.
God does not coddle His saints.  He is not as interested in the work we do for Him as He is in what we are.  He is wanting us to be conformed to the image of His Son and preparing us for reigning and ruling with Him in His coming kingdom.  “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:12).  “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne” (Rev. 3:21).
But let us look at God’s ways with His called ones in the New Testament.  Think of most of His disciples each meeting a horrible death at the hands of wicked kings and rulers.  They were His ambassadors, but He did not keep them out of prison, nor vindicate them before the nations before whom they had witnessed so boldly.  St. Paul did not eventually, in the eventide of his life, receive man’s benediction.  We never hear of him rolling up in the emperor’s carriage, and receiving the plaudits of proud Rome for his long siege of suffering when founding the early churches.  Instead, he is pictured in an hired room, chained between Roman guards and finally falling under Nero’s axe-man’s blow.  God never rent the heavens to say, “This is my beloved missionary in whom I am well pleased.”
But those are Biblical examples, very needful today in the midst of a host of Christians who serve God in order to be happy, prosperous and socially acceptable.  It has become a church tradition of our end times that if we give, we will have plenty, and thrive beyond our fellows in lands, possessions, health and friends.  This is anti-scriptural and belongs to the antichrist’s doctrine with which he is deluding multitudes.  How quick many are to judge wrongly the suffering saint of God if he is sick, has a car accident, business failure or home troubles!
But let us, in our limited space, just recall one or two of God’s choice messengers and see how they were prepared by fiery ordeal to become sons of God for future kingdom rule.
In Ilkeston, Derbyshire, there lived a prosperous man of business with his wife and three children.  He had joined the Methodist local preachers where he faithfully gave forth the Word in his spare weekends.  Then, hearing of the Salvation Army, with their unconventional methods and their teaching of heart holiness, he felt led to join them.  In his journal he wrote:
A solemn awe came upon me.  I then and there pledged myself to God that the spreading of the doctrine of Holiness should be my life work.  I felt that God accepted the vow, and, further, I told Him that, as He should open the way and arrange my circumstances, I would leave my business and become an evangelist or anything that He would lead to.
But instead of added vigor as he contemplated such a high calling, he experienced a breakdown in health; his throat completely failed.  His doctor declared that perfect rest was necessary and even hinted that Henry Howard might have to give up all public speaking appointments.  Confined to his home, restlessness gripped him and many hours were spent in prayer.  Another diary entry reveals his thoughts:
What a week this has been to my soul!  Though confined to my house by my throat affliction, I have received measures of the Spirit more copious than ever before.  How I felt the burden of the work!  How I was led to pour out my soul in continual prayer for the Salvation of the unsaved!  Nearly three months ago, before this affliction was so serious, I told the Lord that if He would open the way, I would make the spreading of Holiness the business of my life.  On Thursday I was led solemnly to pledge myself to God that if He will restore my health I will devote myself to this work not only of preaching Salvation but of proclaiming Holiness to be the duty and privilege of all.
I was shown that this choice would mean trial, contempt, self-denial, loneliness—the last seeming worse than all the rest!  But I laid all upon the altar, and although the Devil tried to terrify me I lifted my hands and vowed before angels and devils to live to this by the help of God.  The assaults of the enemy drove away feelings of joy, but I knew that I was covenanting with God, trusting in my blessed Savior; and even if it is not in His will to spare me and strengthen me, yet I gave Him all that was in my power.
A trip to London to be interviewed by William Booth followed, and he was invited to join in a ten days’ campaign in Cornwall.  The rough hand of discipline was about to lay hold on the candidate so ready to be sacrificed on God’s altar.  Unsparingly, Booth criticized the young man’s preaching—stiff, precise and stilted in mannerisms as he was.  Booth was afraid this would make him unacceptable to the congregations who filled their halls.  Mr. Howard was not to be spared sore woundings by the Maker and Molder of saints, though his was a sensitive and self-conscious nature.  “O Lord, make me or remake me, so long as I can be useful in Thy service,” was his prayer after these repeated humiliations.  But finally came the most severe rebuke of all and the tears flowed down the face of the earnest candidate.  The Founder tenderly knelt beside him explaining that it was his mannerisms which needed to drop off.
But God did not coddle this devoted worker.  Ministers and friends all joined together in misunderstanding the spirit with which he was giving all to follow Christ.  “A whirl of emotion,” “self-gratification,” “mistaken guidance,” “jeopardizing the family”—all but one saint joined in the recriminations.  This courageous friend gave Mr. Howard a Testament with the inscription, “Get thee out of thy country.  Go forward, the Lord is leading you.”  Gratefully remembered was this one ray of sunshine that brightened his darkness.
We can imagine how hard it was to break to his loving partner the necessity to leave their lovely home with a good income, for a life of change and a mere twenty-seven shillings a week for a family of five.  Mrs. Howard was preparing at her home in Ilkeston for removing, when after only a few days of illness their little eleven-month-old daughter died.  Captain Howard rejoined his wife and in anguish laid the little one in the grave.  A few days later their only remaining daughter of seven years, while out with her nurse, had swung on an iron railing and hit her head.  The nurse had not taken seriously the small incident, and had not even informed the parents.  But it proved fatal, and twice within a fortnight the yielded parents walked to the graveside to say a final farewell to two of their most prized possessions.
Some friends took this as an evil omen that they had been deluded in their call and chided most thoughtlessly the man of God.  He wrote in his journal:
“He has taken my children to Himself!  This is no token of His disapproval.  I entered into a covenant with Him in this matter, and ‘though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.’  I shall stand to my covenant and go forward.”
There were even more disappointments, but enough for this one instrument of God’s choosing.  He experienced the “hardness of God’s love” which prepared him for service on life’s battlefield.

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

The stalwart young Highlander, Alexander Duff, and his newly acquired bride, stood on that little island off the Cape of South Africa and looked wistfully toward the wreck of the Lady Holland steamer.  The mountainous waves had subsided now and as the young minister stood with mud-caked clothing in a sheltered hut he was encouraged by receiving a packet which had been washed ashore.  To his amazement, he discovered that it was his new Bagster’s Bible, wrapped in a chamois, and which had been gifted to him before leaving.  He had packed it carefully into the crate that housed eight hundred other volumes of journals, essays, educational and devotional books which were to make up his library out in his new-found mission field of India.  He marveled as he thought of that crate bursting open to release forty books all of which had been reduced to pulp, save his precious Bible.  From henceforth human learning must be to him a means only, not an end in itself.  Of his books and journals he wrote to Dr. Inglis:
“They are gone, and, blessed be God, I can say, gone without a murmur.  So perish all earthly things:  the treasure that is laid up in Heaven alone is unassailable.  God has been to me a God full of mercy, and not the least of His mercies do I find in cheerful resignation.”
But his library was not all that he lost.  Every bit of equipment and personal effects that had been so lovingly and thoughtfully purchased or gifted had gone down in that storm, but not one passenger had been lost.  God had not softened the blow for that first missionary to be sent out by the Church of Scotland.  Only twenty-four years of age, he was to learn that God does not coddle those whom He anoints for royal service.
Some weeks had passed by before another ship could be found to take him and his wife as passengers.  But the Moira finally left Cape Town for the shores of India.  Their depleted store of personal effects had been partially replenished in South Africa, and with buoyancy the youthful Mr. and Mrs. Duff continued their eight month’s journey and at last sighted their beloved, adopted country.  But a south-west monsoon arose as they entered the estuary of the Hoogley, and as the fury grew it was evident that a cyclone had hit the little ship so soon to dock and disembark her passengers.  This time no personal effects were lost in the wreck, but writing later to his dear friend, Dr. Chalmers, he said:
“The cause of Christ is a heavenly and divine thing, and shrinks from the touch of earth.  Often has its high origin been gloriously vindicated.  Often has it cast a mockery on the mightiest efforts of human power.  Often has it gathered strength amid weakness, become rich amid losses, rejoiced amid dangers, and triumphed amid the fires and tortures of hell-enkindled men.  And shall the Church of Scotland dishonor such a cause by exhibiting any symptoms of coldness or despondency in consequence of the recent catastrophe!  God forbid!  Let her rather arouse herself into new energy; let her shake off every earthly alliance with the cause of Christ, as a retarding, polluting alliance; let her confide less in her own resources and more in the arm of Him Who saith, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.’”
Because many Christians do not know the Christ of the Bible, they have adapted this erroneous viewpoint and so are easily offended when the mild and meek Christ they have come to accept doesn’t heal every pain, doesn’t ease every load, doesn’t rescue in every plight, doesn’t soothe and sympathize in every distress.  We are soldiers in God’s infantry, saved to serve, fight and die.  Christ nobly gave Himself for our salvation, and is interceding for us that we may never capitulate before the enemy nor grow weary in the strife.  He has eternal purposes in our discipline and is training sons and daughters to rule in His kingdom in the ages to come.

When He Hath Tried Me
(Job 23:10)

When He hath tried me
I shall come forth—
I shall come forth as gold,
Not tattered and torn
By contrary winds,
But lovingly shaped
In His mold.

The choice of His will,
His pattern for me,
And drawn with eternal design
To glorify Him
Wherever I’m placed,
And marked with His imprint Divine.

Humanly speaking,
My soul would rebel
’Neath the blow
Of the seeming abuse,
But the tool in the Hands
Of an all-wise God,
Will make me—
Fit for His use!

When He hath tried me
I shall come forth
Out of the searing flame,
To be poured out as gold.
In service for Him,
And bearing
His beautiful Name!
—Alice Hansche Mortenson,
used by permission.

SUPERFICIAL COUNSELLING

“For they have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (Jer. 8:11).
It is surprising how some holiness preachers and evangelists can preach good and straight and then upset the whole thing by skimming over and doing superficial altar work.
Until Christian workers discriminate between the Spirit encouraging seeking souls and coming into their hearts, bringing the clear, unmistakable witness to their acceptance with God, just so long they will do shallow altar work.  There is a vast difference between the Spirit coming upon a person from without and taking up His abode within.  God will draw near a soul as he submits and surrenders, and this encouragement may be so great at times as to cause the seeker to shout aloud for joy and yet with all this, he may not have a satisfactory assurance that all is well.
A truly repentant soul will have the witness of his own spirit that he has yielded on every point revealed to him, and this will bring great relief, but this is not enough unless the Holy Spirit comes in and witnesses that he is made “partaker of the divine nature.”  Because of unwise dealing right here thousands of souls stop short and this accounts for so many joyless professors of religion.
In nine cases out of ten the seeker has wrongs to make right, is clinging to some idol, or besetting sin, or rebelling on some other point.  And even though he does say he is fully given up, the very fact that God withholds His seals proves that the heart is still “deceitful and desperately wicked.”  This is why souls should not be rushed through and urged to “believe!  believe!” right over unconfessed, unrepented sins.  How can they believe when they have not met the conditions of faith?  If honest souls were only left alone by unwise instructors, the Holy Spirit would lead them, step by step, into glorious victory.
Hear what Mr. Wesley says upon this important subject:
“There may be foretastes of joy, of peace, of love, and those not delusive, long before we have the witness in ourselves; before the Spirit of God witnesses with our spirits that we have ‘redemption in the blood of Jesus, even the forgiveness of sins.’  Yea, there may be a degree of long-suffering, of gentleness, of fidelity, meekness, temperance (not a shadow thereof, but a real degree) before we are ‘accepted in the Beloved,’ and consequently before we have a testimony of our acceptance; but it is by no means advisable to rest here; it is at the peril of our souls if we do.”
The same thing holds good in dealing with those seeking heart purity.  It is misleading to teach that souls who have not been previously groaning for heart purity can jump up, come forward and obtain such an experience in a few minutes.  True, there is no virtue in length of time, but every soul must get to the end of himself before he dies to carnality.  Some reach the point of victory sooner than others, because they humbled themselves more fully, and as a result appropriating faith reaches the precious Blood that cleanseth from all sin.
Wesley taught that it was necessary to “see the groundwork of the heart, the depths of pride, self-will and hell.”  Adam Clarke says, “Few are cleansed from all sin, or sanctified, because they do not feel and confess their own sore and the plague of their own hearts.”  Now the question arises, “groundwork of his heart,” or, as Fletcher says, “By frequent and deep confessions drag out all these abominations, the remains of envy, jealousy, fretfulness, anger, pride, impatience, peevishness, formality, sloth, prejudice, bigotry, carnal confidence, evil shame, self-righteousness, tormenting fears, uncharitable suspicions, idolatrous love, etc.,” how can such a soul get a real experience in a few minutes? Yes, God is able and does His part instantly, but not until conditions for sanctifying faith are fully met.
One great preacher has said:  “The efforts of some well-meaning persons to get seekers for holiness to consecrate have proven hindrances rather than helps to them in obtaining the experience.  A man comes to the altar seeking holiness.  He has been a happy, shining pilgrim.  There is not an issue between his soul and God relative to future conduct.  He has been blessed time and again as he would rededicate himself to God.  Now someone tells him to consecrate.  He is all broken up over his burden of inward defilement.  He is anxious to do anything to obtain deliverance.  He goes through a carnal dedication of himself to God, his friend altar worker suggesting some things which may not have occurred to his mind before.  His mind is diverted from his difficulty.  He feels a sensation of peace, as anyone will who rededicates himself to God.  He accepts this as holiness and soon awakens to the fact that he was deceived by allowing his mind to be diverted from the object for which he came to the altar, which was not to reconsecrate, but to be made ‘pure.’”
We have been pained to see altar workers compel a seeker to insist (against his own consciousness) that the work was done, and then to make the lie more secure, he was told never to doubt nor depend upon feeling.  “Take it by faith, feeling or no feeling, and the witness will come later.”  No!  Rather urge him to hold on for the witness until it comes.
Should a seeker get wonderfully blessed, the belief is then confirmed by all that it is a very clear case of entire sanctification.  The sentiment is so strong in favor of the seeker’s having it that should an eagle-eyed soul be present and not join in the shout, but rather be pained at such shallow work, he is at once looked upon as being stubborn or jealous.  This is where a faithful worker is lynched (spiritually) by his brethren.  But he takes it gently rather than be accessory in healing the hurt of the daughter of Zion “slightly, crying peace, peace, when there is no (permanent) peace.”
Now there is a reason for all this superficial work.  As a rule, everyone tells and teaches his own experience.  At least he does not urge others to go higher nor deeper than he himself has gone.
If a man has never died the death himself, no difference if he is radical in the pulpit, he will be shallow in his personal dealings with souls.  Get the genuine experience yourself and then your work will stand the test of that great day.
—In Convention Herald, from the book How to Help or Hinder a Revival by Rosenberry.

When at last by faith, I touched Him,
And like sparks from smitten steel,
Just so quick salvation reached me,
And I know, I know,  ’tis real.
—H. L. Cox.

GIVE ME A NAME AMONG MEN

“Oh give me a name, Lord, a name among men,
The praise and the honor shall go to Thee then,
For all will so worship and glorify Thee
When they see how successful a Christian can be.”

“And what,” said the Lord, “do you want with a name?
A lover of Jesus endowed with such fame?
I was spat at, was mocked, was rejected, reviled,
Then can I give honor and fame to My child?”

Disappointed, yet hoping, I cried once again,
“Oh Lord, won’t You give me a name among men?
A name for my piety, goodness and grace?
Oh Lord, can’t You see, ’twill be God men shall praise?”

But e’er I had spoken, in thunder from Heaven,
Came His answer, “No name, no, no name can be given.
Lie low at My feet, and embrace my dear cross,
For your hope is in shame and your glory in loss.”

Then, in blind desperation, I tried once again,
“Oh Lord, can’t You give me a name among men?
Not for honor or fame but that all men might know
Just how low at your feet I am willing to go.”

“My child, oh My child,” and His voice throbbed with pain,
“Must I answer thee no, only no once again?
Must I take from thee all that thy heart would desire?
Must I burn all ambition with Holy Ghost fire?”

Then I knew ’twas no purpose in asking again,
For my Lord would ne’er give me a name among men.
Yet on those all around me, at least so it seemed,
Was poured all the glory of which I had dreamed.

And I?  I sat mourning, unnoticed, unsought,
My eyes dim with weeping, and, ever distraught,
I would stretch out my hands towards the riches of Heaven,
And mourn that for me no blest name could be given.

How long I kept mourning, I cannot now tell,
Though the gall of those days I remember so well.
But, when I was almost engulfed in despair,
I looked up and saw Jesus was standing just there.

Then He stooped, and, ignoring my guilt, and my shame,
He whispered, “My child, there is no other name.”
And while I was wondering just what it could be
That my Savior was stooping to whisper to me,

Then I knew, then I saw, ’twas revealed straight from Heaven,
There is no other Name that can ever be given
In the earth, in the sky, here below, or above,
But the blest Name of Jesus.  Oh marvelous love,

That would share His dear Name with us mortals below,
To use in earth’s conflict, against every foe:
His Name on our foreheads, our hearts and our souls,
Our hope and our honor, our fortress and goal!

Oh the peace after turmoil, the joy after pain,
The light after darkness, the sun after rain—
Just to know that I ne’er would be mourning again,
For my dear Lord has given HIS Name among men!
—Trudy Tait, used by permission.