The Twentieth Century Fallacy – Christian Message of Victory

Man’s gospel does not need the Holy Spirit’s intervention.  Man unaided can “Decide for Christ!  Come to Jesus!  Commit himself to the Savior!”  All is so seemingly orthodox as these are part truths.  God does indeed demand man’s co-operation but God’s part of the necessary, initial drawing, the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin, the power to become sons of God and the witness to Sonship—all these are so little emphasized that man is actually superseding God even in presenting redemption.  Satan could not go undetected if he did not float his gospel of error on a good deal of God’s truth.
Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ is preached without due emphasis on repentance toward an offended God.  Sin is no longer exceedingly sinful for we have a society that condones homosexual practice and adultery with the world, that excuses transgression as a mere mistake and asks Christians to show sympathy for unrepentant criminals as would foster crime and violence.  Rebel man now treats God as though He were an indulgent Father Who overlooks everything for Christ’s sake.  The pigsty is glamorized in our modern prodigal story.  He does not come to the end of himself.  The repentant note of, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son,” is missing.  Oh, for that welcome cry, “Make me as one of thy hired  servants,” where the returning rebel resigns his sinful independence and henceforth serves God as Lord.
The bewildered youth sees such inconsistency in the union of churches and ministers in this good-will effort for the community, that he is confused as to whether modernism is really a denial of God and whether after all there is such a thing as a Bible-based, supernatural experience with God.
This false gospel preaching is man-orientated.  It presents to the crowds, motives for “believing and accepting Christ” that were never offered in the Bible.  “Get saved; you’ll be secure.”  “Get saved and you’ll be happy.”  “Get saved and you’ll find the solution to all your problems.”  “Get saved and prosper.”  “Get saved and you’ll have wonderful fellowship.”
The true prophet must declare the whole counsel of God.  Conflict surrounds him.  Unpopularity is often his portion.  The converts resulting from his ministry have little difficulty in understanding that this is the way of the cross.  The true apostle of Christ insists upon repentance and restitution.  He, as Christ’s follower, shows that inevitable cross-bearing, persecution and perhaps even loss of job or friends are often the price of being born-again in a world where Satan is god.
Modern evangelism aims at volume rather than quality.  Success is judged by numbers.  The supporting committee demands impressive statistics.  Hence the gimmick is introduced, even if reluctantly.  The dramatic or lengthy appeal is employed.  The whole procedure is a matter of minutes, but not so in the matter of a new birth.
The old-fashioned evangelist was sure of having the Holy Spirit as his Partner in the work.  He would array before the sinner his undone condition.  He would carry on the work after the evangelist had left the district.  And the prophet of God would be happy if Heaven recorded only one true convert rather than ten thousand decisions.  The approval of God would be more valuable to him than a notable name or a large salary or the support of God-denying modernists.
A godly minister recently said that the worst kind of illness he had ever experienced was five months of conviction for sin.  But no one likes to suffer in this pain-killing age, so the popular evangelist will have to offer, as does the physician, drugs to ease the pain.  The word of a counselor—a mere man or woman—is a poor substitute for the mighty, inward assurance of the Holy Spirit witnessing to man’s spirit that a child of Adam has been truly reborn and has become a member of that Heaven-born race of sons and daughters of the eternal God.
What an awful swindle has been perpetrated upon the church of the twentieth century!  What a terrible let down it is to any soul who might have thought the Gospel was the “power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth!”
We are all familiar with the results of such a partial gospel.  With no new life, there is no hungering and thirsting after righteousness.  There is no demand for spiritual food.  The Bible is not necessary for the life of a child of the first Adam.  Everywhere we hear the sad lament that there are so few mature Christians who feed on the Word.  The Bible teacher is not in popular demand because there is little spiritual life to sustain.  The prayer meeting is almost non-existent, and if it does function, it is attended by a few elderly saints with whom the young converts do not care to associate but hive off into fellowships of their own to indulge their own music groups, panel discussion and worldly methods for filling the church.  The advice and help of those who have traversed the hard road of repentance and holiness is shunned by these latest additions to the church because there is no spiritual life to foster and so no need of spiritual parenthood.

1. W. Tozer has commented on this “instant Christianity” thus:  “Instant Christianity tends to make the faith-act terminal, and so smothers the desire for spiritual advance.  It fails to understand the true nature of the Christian life, which is not static but dynamic and expanding.  It overlooks the fact that a new Christian is a living organism as certainly as a new baby is, and must have nourishment and exercise to assure normal growth.  It does not consider that the act of faith in Christ sets up a personal relationship between two intelligent moral beings, God and the reconciled man, and no single encounter between God and a creature made in His image could ever be sufficient to establish an intimate friendship between them. . . .

“Undue preoccupation with the initial act of believing has created in some a psychology of contentment, or at least of non-expectation.  To many, it has imparted a mood of quiet disappointment with the Christian faith.  God seems too far away, the world is too near, and the flesh too powerful to resist.  Others are glad to accept the assurance of automatic blessedness.  It relieves them of the need to watch and fight and pray, and sets them free to enjoy this world while waiting for the next.”
Another sad effect of this “decision” without the new birth is that there is no hungering for holiness.  The teaching of the necessity to be holy has no attraction for the religious child of the first Adam either in books or sermons.  Need we be surprised when some have relegated this precious teaching to the refuse heap of worn-out doctrines no longer needed.  We are convinced that there would be an immediate resurgence of desire for holiness if we were to see a genuine revival in which souls were new born.  To promote holiness, we are convinced we must begin by insisting on regeneration.  The Book of Life registers only new births—not mere decisions.
But Satan has also offered a substitute for the fiery baptism of the Holy Spirit which purges the heart and burns out sin.  There is nothing he hates so much as that which insists upon the destruction of the disposition to sin which Satan infused in the human race at the Fall.  Jesus came for that express purpose that “He might destroy the works of the devil.”  God did not create man with this disposition to evil.  That serpent-like nature invaded Adam’s race when he disobeyed God and it was primarily for the destruction of that satanic intrusion in man’s nature that Christ came into the world and died on the cross.  It was our old man of sin that He took there, crucifying him and nailing him to the cross.
Spreading over the land is the pseudo experience of a baptism of the Holy Spirit that fits the “decision” convert perfectly.  No conviction for the inner corruption and depravity of our natures is required.  Often the truthful testimony of those receiving this charismatic experience is:  “I felt no inner moral change at my baptism.”  They have had a fleshly upsurge of emotion and joy; a boldness to promote their theories:  but they have not experienced the purging, cleansing flame of God’s Holy Spirit baptizing them in old-fashioned Pentecostal power.  Having experienced this substitute, the recipient looks down upon the sanctified man or woman of God who faithfully presents the requisite for the death of the “I” and the crucifixion of the old polluted nature of sin.
If you were Satan and were trying to hold man as your vassal and slave, would you not endeavor to present a religious experience which would rob him of that new birth into another family?  Would you not exercise him rather about ecstatic gifts which he could possess and ignore the need for the death of that old serpent-like disposition to sin?  Read many of the charismatic books and you will find almost a total absence of such words as “repentance,” “the cross,” “total depravity” and “death to the old Adam life.”  In their place will be oft-recurring references to “gifts,” “speaking in tongues,” “joy,” etc.  The cross with its stringent demand for crucifixion with Christ is the test of truth.
Jesus warned that false prophets would come as wolves in sheep’s clothing.  Lamb-like coverings would conceal the wolfish nature of him who would seek popularity by trafficking in human souls.  Christ said we should judge in such a vital issue.  In nature we judge a tree by the fruit it bears, and in this way we are to know a false prophet.  “Ye shall know them by their fruits.  Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?  Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.  A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. . . . Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:16-20).
If any gift is needed today it is the gift of discernment, but little is said of this costly gift.
Oh, let us seek to put God, the great I AM, back into the forefront.  Let us give Him His rightful place in His own world.  This is the time for action before death seals our lips.  We can glorify Him in our lives as did Jesus Who so magnified God that He attributed His words, His deeds and His judgments to the Father.  “The Father worketh hitherto and I work.”  “I can of mine own self do nothing.”
When God is exalted, then we get what only God can do.  When He was honored in Israel, the cloud of His presence protected them from the glare of a tropical sun; the pillar of fire stood over them in protection at night;  “His right hand got Him the victory.”  He opened the sea for His people.  He marched at the head of their armies, giving victory, but it was always His victory.  When man trusted in man, he made truces with powerful nations round about, the results of which were frustration, slavery and defeat.  When God could find a perfect-hearted man He showed Himself strong on his behalf.
Oh, dear readers, let us invite God to come back on the scene once again.  Let us intercede with Him for divine revelations to sinful men of their undone state.  Let us watch as we notice the note of reality and assurance that comes when the inward witness of the Spirit seals the work done.

EDITORIAL
BATTLE FOR THE NEW BIRTH

A battle for the reality of the new birth should be waged by all regenerate Christians.  Many times physicians and nurses have to battle for the live birth of an infant.  But the Church has had to fight for that wonderful miracle—the birth of the soul.  Doubtless this is part of what Jude referred to when he exhorted the early Christians to earnestly “contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.”
Why the fight?  From the devil’s point of view the objects to be gained are most obvious.  The miracle of the new birth drives away unbelief and is the greatest possible argument against atheism and liberalism.  The change wrought in such a New Creature is the greatest publicity possible and it loads the scales heavily in favor of a victory for King Jesus in the neighborhood.  Satan can argue against theology and sermons and organized efforts, but he is speechless before the evidences displayed daily in the changed life.
The devil has more to lose.  A born-again convert is very audible.  He cannot be silenced.  How the old Pharisees hated the man born blind and his pestering, troublesome testimony, “One thing I know, whereas once I was blind now I see”!  “I am saved,” “I am a new creature,” and “Something happened to me” are proclamations that Satan would like to silence.  No wonder he fights first of all to prevent the birth, and if he loses at that level he fights on to kill or maim in early infancy.  He reminds us of the ravens and the black-backed gulls in the far north.  Both of these birds are active in the lambing season.  Shepherds tell us that they watch for the lamb before it ever gets its feet after birth, and will attack it when helpless and tear out its eyes or its tongue or both.  The shepherd keeps a twenty-four hour vigil to protect this young life.
The devil has still more to lose.  The born-again convert is a fighter.  If properly fed and instructed, the life in him will develop.  His viewpoint will be changed from that of this world to that of the other world and he will array himself against everything that is evil and of the devil.  A regiment of new-born Christians in their first love is very formidable to the devil’s kingdom.  What is more they, like all living organisms, desire food.  They have an appetite for holiness and unless hindered by wrong advice or by inconsistent older Christians, will “go on unto holiness.”  They will, like the early disciples, “tarry for the promise of the Father.”  They will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and with Him abiding within they will proceed to contribute to turning the world upside down as did the early Church.
The devil cannot afford to see many new births.  George Fox said that a truly born-again Christian would have an influence which would be felt for a radius of ten whole miles.  “What,” says the reader, “what can we say of the thousands of people who make decisions annually?”  Alas, a decision so-called and a new birth are two entirely different things.
Why the fight?  From the point of view of the Church, the battle is of equal importance from the very opposite reasons.  Without born-again Christians, the Church gets bogged down in formalism.  It becomes as any nation would become—a dying thing.  All over this land the unbelieving are dubbing the Church “an institution of the past.”  They could not do this if there were an influx of new babies.  A maternity ward is not called a “has-been institution.”  It is very much up to date.  It has priority as a vital necessity.  It is a “must” if the nation is not to die.  The lambing shed is not an outdated institution.  Neither is a chicken hatchery.  All these are full of interest and vibrant with anticipation.  For that reason revivals of vital religion have been tremendously exciting times and have made history, for they have seen ushered on to the religious scene, new spiritual producers, new forces to shape history.
Why the fight for new births?  Without a new influx of spiritual infants the prayer meeting dies.  You can have the club, the concert, the social, without this new life, but the prayer meeting will languish every time if new souls are not coming in.
If no new-born souls come in, the witness dies.  There is nothing new to relate.  Bystanders wonder and rightly so, if anything useful is being served by the Church, but let a few people get really born-again and that portion of the Church will again become a force for God.  It is true they will bring problems.  New life always does.  But these will be healthy problems—of food, of protection, of exercise, of training.  These problems give heart.
But what of the problems of a childless Church?  If nothing is done, numbers dwindle till the building is sold for a warehouse or something similar.  If, as in the case of many today, a human substitute for the new birth is brought in, membership may not suffer, but the problems of worldliness and all that goes with it will swamp the Church.  If people, especially the young, are induced to become nominal Christians by signing a decision card without a change of heart, the Church will have to turn itself into an entertainment committee.
This “new evangelism” is a play thing of the devil.  Get a young chap to feel he ought to be different.  Quote a verse to him about a fundamental Christian tenet such as the divinity of Christ, of His place as Savior of the world, and if he says he assents to that, then tell him he is saved.  In the pubs we find them.  Disillusioned.  Everywhere we go we find them.  They tell us they tried it once and it did not work.  Of course it did not.  They were not convicted that they were sinners.  They were not sorry enough to forsake their sins.  In other words, they did not repent.  But they were told they were saved.  Oh, friends, let us fight to see old-fashioned conviction, repentance and the belief from the heart.

In regeneration there is a definite act of creation; there is the gift of a new life:  there is a second birth.—J. E. Cumming.

 I was twenty years old before I ever heard a sermon on regeneration.  I was always told to be good, but you . . . might tell a salve to be free, but that would not make him free.  But Christ frees us.  We are a bad lot, the whole of us, by nature.  It is astonishing how the devil blinds us, and makes us think we are so naturally good.  Don’t talk to me about people being naturally good and angelic.  We are naturally bad, the whole of us.  The first man born of a woman was a murderer.  Sin leaped into the world full-grown, and the whole race has been bad all the way down.  I have heard of reform, reform, until I am tired and sick of the whole thing.  It is regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost we need. —D. L. Moody.

THE AWFUL FRAUD . . . as viewed by servants of God

The Product of No Omnipotent Power by a Scottish Evangelist

Far clearer than before I see the current religion hollow and insecure.  It is the fruit of no trial, the result of no Divine fire, the product of no omnipotent power.—Duncan Matheson.

The Manufactured Article by a Missionary to India

What I find in Travancore is a crowd of people, thinking themselves converted, and coming to meetings to enjoy Scripture teaching, but sadly lacking in practical godliness, and with little or no zeal for the conversion of others.  There seems to me an absence of real power, and it distresses me.
Do not many of us need first of all a personal awakening?  We have got into a routine of work, and can show an honorable record, at the close of every day, of business accomplished, visits paid, classes taught, addresses given.  But in the light of eternity are we satisfied with that?  Have souls been really sought, yearned over, loved, and won?  Is ours fruit that will remain?  We may even persuade hundreds, especially of the poorer classes, to accept baptism and enroll themselves as Christians; but are we sure that they are God’s converts and not merely the manufactured article?  Are we working ourselves with the Fire of God, and not merely using the artificial fire, the strange fire, of our own fleshly energy?  Are we awake ourselves?
However this may be, thank God we have amongst us seers as well as prophets, men who consider quality as of more account than quantity.  It is felt, and strongly felt, that the real influence of the Indian Church is in direct proportion to the depth of its spiritual life; and that while we may possibly win adherents by an imposing show of numbers or by a vast missionary machinery of schools, congregations, and agencies, we can only win true converts by the power of the Holy Ghost working in and through the lives of sanctified believers.—Thomas Walker of Tinnevelly.

Only One . . . But a Lion by a Free Methodist Bishop

Of itself, it is no evidence that we are right, or that God is with us, simply because converts are made through our instrumentality.  The true test is found, not in their number, but in their character.  In the classic fables it is said that a fox once ridiculed a lioness because she had but one whelp.  The reply of the mother of the monarch of the forest was:  “One, but a lion.”
One real convert to God is, for all purposes for which the Christian religion was instituted, worth more than a thousand who have mistaken conviction for conversion; or who have been simply converted to the minister, or the church, or been made fiery partisans, or fierce bigots.
He who makes the gate so broad that men can pass through it without renouncing the world, or confessing their sins, or repairing the wrongs which they have done to others, will not want for disciples in this fallen world. . .
Men usually get converted to the standard of piety that is held up in the preaching to which they listen, the testimony which they hear and the lives of the representatives of Christ with whom they are familiar.  How important then that the Church should be pure!  To secure this, strive with the utmost diligence.—B. T. Roberts.

Whitewashed or Recreated by the Founder of W.E.C.

Now the main thing is to get the eyes of these people open.  They need to see hell and the result of their sin, and that produces fear, the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom.  Once get this fear and all will be comparatively easy; but if this fear does not lay hold of a man, his so-called conversion is a sham.  True love wakens a man to reality; sham love soaps him down to hell, greases his trail, in fact, to hell.  Very many are half asleep or deluded, and make up fancy doctrines of their own, which practically mean that an unholy man can get to Heaven without being holy.  But remember, Christ did not die to whitewash us, He died to recreate us, and none but His recreations enter Heaven.
—C. T. Studd

A Race of Dwarfs by a Baptist Minister

Oh, if the church had in her midst a race of heroes; if our missionary operations could be attended with the holy chivalry which marked the Church in the early days; if we could have back apostles and martyrs, or even such as Carey and Judson, what wonders would be wrought!  We have fallen upon a race of dwarfs, and are content, to a great extent, to have it so.
There was once in London a club of small men, whose qualification for membership lay in their not exceeding five feet in height; these dwarfs held, or pretended to hold, the opinion that they were nearer the perfection of manhood than others, for they argued that primeval men had been far more gigantic than the present race, and consequently the way of progress was to grow less and less, and that the human race as it perfected itself would become as diminutive as themselves.  Such a club of Christians might be established in London, and without any difficulty might attain to an enormously numerous membership; for the notion is common that our dwarfish Christianity is after all the standard, and many even imagine that nobler Christians are enthusiasts, fanatical, and hot-blooded; while we are cool because we are wise and indifferent, because intelligent.  We must get rid of all this nonsense.
The fact is, the most of us are vastly inferior to the early Christians who, as I take it, were persecuted because they were thoroughly Christians, and we are not persecuted because we hardly are Christians at all.—C. H. Spurgeon.

We Need a Pentecost by a Missionary to Japan

The fruitlessness and poverty in one’s ministry appall me.  We have reached some 15,000 to 20,000 people, not Gospel hardened:  and though we have reason to believe that some few, with whom we have had no personal talk at all, have found their way into the churches and will be baptized, yet after six weeks’ strenuous effort we can only record some 200 as being awakened; and though all these have professed conversion, been prayed with, and sought God in prayer themselves, yet I fear not more than 25 per cent. put in a second appearance at the meetings, or, as far as we know, show evidence of having experienced real saving grace.  And yet this painfully humiliating record has to be made.  Alas!  there is nothing Pentecostal here!  Though we do bow before our God in the deepest gratitude that He has ever allowed us to be the means of bringing light and life even to one dark, dead soul.  Oh to realize Pentecost again!—Paget Wilkes.

Converted But Not Regenerated by a Canadian Pastor and Writer

We are living in a day when people are getting converted without being regenerated; when they are making decisions for Christ but are not being born again; when they are believing without receiving.  This is a day when people are professing to be Christians and yet not becoming new creatures.  Old things have not passed away, nor have all things become new.  There is no change.
Today we are seeing the greatest evangelism that we have seen for decades.  But evangelism is not revival.  And in evangelism people may make decisions without any real conviction of sin.  And a decision without conviction may not be genuine.  The new birth is the work of the Spirit of God.  We are born “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).
The Bible says:  “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12).  It is one thing to receive Him, but another to become God’s child.  When you make your decision for Christ, you then have the authority to become God’s son, but you do not become His son until He saves you.
Your believing and receiving may be purely intellectual.  There must follow the new birth.  You have accepted Christ, but has God saved you?  Does His Spirit bear witness with your spirit that you are His child?
Beware lest you be converted but not regenerated!—Oswald J. Smith.

Why so many Christians are Destitute by an American Theologian

Let us now proceed to answer the inquiry why so many Christians are destitute of that secret of the Lord which Enoch had in Old Testament times and which is promised in a far larger measure under the dispensations of the Holy Spirit.  We cite an imaginary conversation.
“I felt bad, went to an altar or inquiry room, felt better, and was told that this was regeneration.  So I joined the church, but I walked in darkness almost as dense as before.  I was told to trust the written Word of Christ, Who says:  ‘Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.’”
Precious words these, but often misapplied.  All the promises are designed to awaken faith in the penitent soul by showing that God is able and willing to save now; but no one of them contains the record of your personal pardon.  You are to trust the written word of God until you have the spoken word of the Spirit in your heart.  The only advice we dare give to a seeking soul is this:  “Trust God for Jesus’ sake to do the work, until the Spirit certifies that it is done.”
Saving faith is a new exercise to the seeking soul, springing out of real repentance for sin.  I cannot, in my advice to him, assume the infallibility of his mental judgment of his own inward states and spiritual exercises and urge him to jump to the conclusion that he really does fulfill the conditions of salvation and that Jesus does now save him.  This is the prerogative of the Spirit of adoption.  The divine efficiency comes in at this point assuring the soul that he has truly abandoned sin and accepted Christ, and may now grasp the assurance for pardon.
Without the Spirit’s testimony, no one has in the written Word any ground for believing that God has saved or does now save the soul.  Saving faith is not a leap in the dark, as some teach, but a firm stepping upon God’s recorded willingness and ability to grant present deliverance from the guilt of sin, until we step upon the last stone which is the Spirit’s testimony, “He doeth it.”
Many have been advised to assume that their repentance and faith are evangelical, and to reckon that Jesus now pardons, when this is not the fact.  They have reckoned without their host and have been put into an exceeding embarrassing attitude toward Christ before the world.  Some of these under the Spirit’s guidance, despite the bad human advice, stumble into salvation.  But many others, after groping in darkness for a long time, give up the struggle, and drop back into sin.  But another large class clings to their Christian profession and makes up a mass of inert and lifeless members found in all our churches, who have stopped short of a satisfactory assurance of sins forgiven, and vainly imagine that they are saved.—Daniel Steele.

Partial Christians by a Keswick Speaker

It is because we are only partially Christian that the world today is almost wholly pagan.  A partially Christian church is responsible for the almost universally Christless state of the world.—Dr. Stuart Holden.

Insist on a Change by the German Reformer

My teaching is not of doing and leaving undone, but of a change in the man so that it is not new works done, but a new man to do them; not another life only, but another birth.—Martin Luther.

A New World by an Evangelist and Writer

A birth is an entrance into life.  No infant has an individual life until the moment of its birth.  No soul of man has any spiritual individuality until he is born again, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”  Without this new birth, our Lord says, a man cannot even see (i.e., perceive, identify) the kingdom of God.  Only spiritual eyes can discern spiritual things.  With the new birth comes new vision.  A new world is open to a man when he passes “from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.”—Mrs. M. Baxter.

            The Living Dead

From a high point I saw the city
Open and bare beneath me spread,
And therein walked, O God of pity,
Few living, many dead:
Dead men entombed in daily labors,
Grappling for gold, in ghostly strife;
Dead neighbors chattering with dead neighbors;
Dead youth seeing life.

EXPERIENCE PAGE

I DIED HARD, BUT I DIED SURE

By Seth Rees

Frugally brought up on a Western farm by godly Quaker parents, my early youth was well preserved from close contact with this evil world.  Its ways, customs and maxims were almost wholly unknown to us.  Though our meetings for Divine worship were frequently held in profound and unbroken silence, I was rarely absent from my accustomed place by my father’s side in the quaint, severely plain, unpainted old meeting-house.  It was not uncommon for six or seven hundred people, most of them Friends, to assemble at our regular First-day morning meeting.  The plank benches were hard, the backs straight and uncomfortable, and my feet did not touch the floor by many inches.  Added to this was the rigorous rule of keeping perfectly still, and yet I have some most blessed memories of those early days.  I devoutly thank God that, in the matter of church attendance, my youthful education was not neglected.
But I regret to record that early in my teens I threw off the lines of restraint, and for several years a wild, impetuous, evil spirit carried me into sin.  It was under the faithful, fiery ministry of the now sainted Calvin W. Pritchard, that I was put under deep and pungent conviction for sin, and gloriously converted to God.
The “anxious seat,” or “penitent form,” was not then used in our meetings, but at the close of a sermon preached “with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven,” all were requested to stand who desired the prayers of God’s people.  To the utter astonishment of a large congregation, almost all of which knew me personally, I arose to my feet.  I had not at that time the most remote idea of ever being converted.  In fact, I had no thought that it was possible for me to be saved.  I remember distinctly of saying to myself, “I will give them a good subject for them to try their hand on.”  No further request was made, and no one spoke to me about the step I had taken.
To a similar invitation the next evening I stood up, more because I had done so the night before than anything else.  But now I very soon began “to feel serious,” and when on First-day night a different call was made and all were asked to arise who sincerely desired to become Christians, in company with a number of others, I promptly responded.  Nothing more was said to me, either publicly or privately, but the dear Holy Spirit suggested to me that I attend the day meeting on Second-day morning.
As I entered the meeting-house yard a neighbor said:  “Will thee come and sit with me?” and without waiting for an answer he led the way to a seat much further forward than I had been accustomed to occupy since I was a boy.  I had not long been seated when the Spirit fell upon the congregation, and the meeting proved to be one of testimony and confession.  When the meeting was well under way a strange power came over me, and I rose to my feet and confessed that I was an awful sinner.  I was not on my feet thirty seconds, but I sat down a saint!  It seemed as if all Heaven dropped into my soul.  Up to that time I had not attempted to pray.  I had not shed a tear.  Now my eyes were fountains, and wept like rain.  The complexion of everything changed.  Every blade of grass, every drop of water and every bird of forest and field, seemed to dance with delight.
I conferred not with flesh and blood, but under the immediate and perceptible guidance of the Spirit, I went out into school-house and churches, and held meetings in various parts of Indiana and Ohio.  Hundreds were converted, for great and lasting revivals came down upon the people.  Almost before I had considered what my calling was, the meeting of which I was a member had acknowledged my gift and recorded me a minister of the Gospel of Christ.
But it was not long before I found the motions of evil within me.  I was not a little surprised to discover that there was a sin-principle remaining in my breast, which mocked, persecuted and threatened the new life.  It required great devotion and much prayer and watching to remain in victory.  I had seasons of great depression of spirit, and sometimes suffered temporary defeat.  At other times I would ascend to mounts of rapture and ecstasy.  I know now that I was led to profess sanctification when I did not possess that blessed grace.  I said, “I have taken Christ as my Sanctifier.  I just claim it by faith.  The altar sanctifies the gift,” etc.  But I had never had a real funeral.  Under ordinary preaching I felt fairly comfortable, and could stand up to all the tests put to the congregation.  But under the search-light of the ministry of such men as David B. Updengraff or Dr. Dougan Clark, I would feel keenly conscious of a shortage in my experience.
Again and again have I rushed from the meeting into the woods or open country, by day or by night, to weep and cry to God for hours.  I really reached a state of conviction, even after I had preached for years, when the wretchedness and anguish of my heart was often inconceivable.  My suffering under conviction for inbred sin greatly surpassed anything I had endured when an awakened sinner.  I had been in the ministry for ten years and, incongruous and presumptuous as it may seem, I had dreamed of places of prominence and honor in my church.  To give up my reputation and renounce my ambition for place, and die out completely to what might be said or thought about me, seemed more than I could possibly do.  But the Holy Ghost had “harpooned” me, and I found no rest, day nor night, until I gave up entirely.
I went on my face before God and lay prostrate before Him, crying for deliverance from the “old man.”  I longed for human sympathy.  I remembered ministers who I thought could help me, but no help came.  It was the darkest day of my life.  After hours of agony I began to be filled with a sense of sinking, sinking, and it seemed as if I was dying.  Then I began to say, “Yes,” to the Lord, “Yes!  Yes!  Amen!  Amen!  Amen!”  The past, present and future, all the known and all the unknown, my reputation, my all, went into God’s lap.  I gladly consented to be deposed from the ministry.  One of the things that the Holy Ghost brought before me at that time was my future attitude toward the distinctive views of our Society—the Quaker Church.  Would I follow Him if it led me contrary to my previous religious teaching?  I little knew then what was implied or what it would cost me to make this consecration, but I said, “Yes.”  I “died hard,” but I “died sure.”
At last there began to creep into my soul a tranquil feeling, a holy hush, a death-like stillness, a sweet, placid “second rest.”  I had let go and He had embraced me in His arms.  Eight hours later, the conscious filling came and from that hour I had convictions of certainty.  “The old man” was “put off,” “the body of sin” was “destroyed,” “the old leaven” was “purged out,” “the flesh” was “cut away,” “the son of the bondwoman” was “excommunicated,” “the carnal mind” was “crucified,” and I was dead indeed unto sin.  HE did it.  No credit belongs to me.  The Holy Ghost came in, cleansed the temple, spread the table, and I took supper with the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, that very day.  He settled all my difficulties, expelled all my doubts, metamorphosed my duties into delights, dazzled my head with glory and filled my heart with dancing.
I am deeply regretful that for years after this I sometimes grieved the Spirit by permitting myself to worry, thus allowing friction and worry to come in.  Instead of relying entirely upon the Holy Ghost, I was betrayed into a rigid, severe life.  I was marvelously preserved from sin, but lacked the sweetness and juice and absolute freedom from care that the Holy Ghost wishes to maintain in His wholly sanctified people.  I lost much of the kernel of the experience fighting for the doctrine.
A few years since, the Holy Ghost taught me more perfectly how to cast and keep all my care on Him for “He careth for you.”  I took my hands off of men, whether friends or foes; off of my experience, my circumstances, my interests, myself; off of everybody and everything.  I am leaning upon the arm of my Beloved.  No more irksome tasks, no more “toiling and rowing,” no more worry, fret or friction.  Never a “hot box!”  He is no more “baali” (Master or Lord), but “Ishi” (my husband).  Hallelujah!
—From The Ideal Pentecostal Church.

DUSTING OR CLEANSING

 

Dick, aged three, did not like soap and water.  One day, his mother was trying to reason with him, “Surely you want to be a clean little boy, don’t you?”  “Yes,” tearfully agreed Dick, “but can’t you just dust me?”

AN APPALLING DECEPTION

The popular revivals of the last quarter of a century have been very superficial.  The method which consists of raising the hand, signing a card, entering an enquiry room—where the “seeker” sits bolt upright like a post and coolly converses on the subject of religion—and finally “taking it by faith,” is an awful fraud and burlesque on the true revival.  It is a deception that is appalling.  Thousands are swept into the “church” and from thence into hell!  Souls are dropping into the mouth of the pit in platoons and battalions for the want of men who preach a faithful Gospel.  The superficial revivals to which we have referred only make it more difficult for those who do thorough work.
Even among some so-called Holiness teachers and workers there is a tendency to superficiality.  Many seekers are taught to make the profession the condition of obtaining the grace.  “Just claim it by faith and say, ‘It is done,’ and it is done.”  You ask these wrong-instructed people if they know they are saved or sanctified.  The answer is:  “Well, I have just taken Christ for my Savior, or Sanctifier,” as the case may be.  “I am simply trusting.  I have not had the witness of the Spirit, but I do not depend on feeling.  I am just standing on the promise.”
The whole thing is nonsense and a farce.  In the first place, the essence of a promise is contained in its fulfillment.  It is folly to talk about standing on a promise if the promise is not fulfilled.  Faith is not an effort.  Faith rests and always gets an answer.  Faith springs up readily in thoroughly submitted soil.  Not one person in a thousand has any real difficulty with his faith in getting divine experiences.  If pardon is the thing sought, repentance is usually the catch.  If the seeker is after a clean heart, the shortage is in his consecration.
When a sinner has done a thorough job of repenting, the grace of faith is present to cause faith to spring up.  When a believer has gone down, down to the very bottom in his consecration until he has lost confidence in himself and in everything and everybody else to sanctify him, it will be the easy, yea, the natural thing for him to do to fall over on God and trust Him.
Some say, “I have taken it by faith, but I have not received the evidence.”  Impossible.  Faith itself “is the evidence of things not seen,” and real faith always brings the witness of the Spirit.  The witness of the Spirit moves us out of the realm of faith into the province of knowledge.  What we believed we have come to know.  True faith is the channel through which we get all our blessings from God.
One of the great mistakes of this age is that many think and say that “Splendid ends can be reached only by the use of splendid means.”  The demand, therefore, is for splendid means.  But this premise is not true.  God can do great things with a “Moses’ rod,” a “ram’s horn,” a “shepherd’s sling,” or an “ox-goad.”  He can take the things that are not and bring to naught the things that are.
A common mistake among workers is to bow down to the implements used.  God lets us catch a few fish, and we burn incense to our nets.  We fail to give Him the glory.  May not God trust us with great success without danger of our filching the glory!
—Seth C. Rees in The Ideal Pentecostal Church.

Nothing lives that does not come by the gateway of birth.

YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN

By Samuel Chadwick

That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6).
All living things come into being by birth.  Life cannot be manufactured.  The processes of fusion and adaptation can accomplish much, but they cannot produce life.  Everything short of life can be attained.  The elements of life can be analyzed and copied, the forms of life can be imitated so perfectly that the most microscopic examination reveals no difference, but there is no life.  The mysterious element baffles and eludes all human skill.  There is no life but by communication from a living parent.  Nothing lives that does not come by the gateway of birth.
Parentage determines nature.  The propagation of every form of life is limited to its own kind.  Life carries seed within itself; the seed it yields is after its own kind; to each seed is given a body of its own.  In the sphere of Nature every seed brings forth after its own kind and no other.  This law is never transgressed.  The creatures of the sea bring forth after their kind, and every winged fowl after its kind.  That which is born of the animal is animal; that which is born of vegetable is vegetable; that which is born of man is man.
Upon this universal law Jesus bases the universal necessity of the New Birth.  The spiritual kingdom demands a quality of being not possessed by natural man.  Here again we touch a fundamental principle.  Every kingdom demands as a condition of citizenship correspondence with its own quality of life.
The realms of music and art are impossible to all who are destitute of musical and artistic gifts.  Mathematics are forbidden ground to men who have no capacity for figures and no power of calculation.  The man born blind is not more destitute of the sense of light and color than is the man utterly without conception of the things for which he has no mental faculty.  If any man would enter the kingdom of harmony he must be musical; if he would enter the kingdom of art he must have the soul of an artist; if he would enter the kingdom of pure reason he must have the gift of sequence, order and relation.  No kingdom is accessible without affinity for its own peculiar nature and order of life and service.
The first demand of a spiritual kingdom is a spiritual nature.  Since “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” Jesus says, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”  Christ’s condemnation of the flesh is three-fold:

1. It cannot see the kingdom of God.
2. It cannot enter the kingdom of God.
3. It chooses evil and darkness rather than goodness and light.

This is confirmed in the teaching of St. Paul.  “That natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them because they are spiritually judged.”  That is the intellectual disqualification; they cannot see the kingdom of God.
Again, “They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh—for the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be:  and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”  That is the emotional disqualification; they have neither desire nor appreciation of the things of the Spirit.  They cannot enter the kingdom of God.—From Humanity and God.

SIGNS OF THE NEW BIRTH

“Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).

The answer to the question “How can a man be born when he is old,” is—When he is old enough to die—to die right out to his “rag rights,” to his virtues, to his religion, to everything, and to receive into himself the life which never was there before.  The new life manifests itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness.

“As many as received Him” (John 1:12).

Is my knowledge of Jesus born of internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned by listening to others?  Have I something in my life that connects me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior?  All spiritual history must have a personal knowledge for its bedrock.  To be born again means that I see Jesus.

“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Do I seek for signs of the Kingdom, or do I perceive God’s rule?  The new birth gives a new power of vision whereby I begin to discern God’s rule.  His rule was there all the time, but true to His nature; now that I have received His nature, I can see His rule.

“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin” (1 John 3:9).

Do I seek to stop sinning or have I stopped sinning?  To be born of God means that I have the supernatural power of God to stop sinning.  In the Bible it is never—Should a Christian sin?  The Bible puts it emphatically—A Christian must not sin.  The effective working of the new birth life in us is that we do not commit sin, not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have stopped sinning.  1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin; it means that if we obey the life of God in us, we need not sin.—Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest.