Bible Believing Fundamentalist

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REVIVAL SERMONS

BEVERLY CARRADINE

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CONTENTS

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CHAPTER 1

REVIVALS

David is asking in this verse for a revival. He distinctly specifies the

character: “Wilt thou not revive us.” He wanted a Divine work as opposed

to a mere human effort and result. Something not worked up, but sent

down.

Several reflections may be drawn from this Scripture.

Most of us have been brought to God and into the church through the

instrumentality of the revival. Even where this is not the case we have

been refreshed, renewed and in various ways benefited by genuine revivals

of religion. Some historians say that English society was saved by the

Wesleyan Revival of last century.

The Methodist Church certainly ought to believe in them. She was born in

one, cradled and rocked in others, and made strong by ten thousand more.

Like the animal Daniel saw in his vision she has advanced North, South,

East and West just as she has pushed along this special line of spiritual

effort and Divine blessing. Nothing can stand before her when putting on

the garments of salvation and with revival power in her heart and revival

song and sermon on her lips, she turns upon the powers of darkness.

Sinners and sinful institutions alike go down before her. Here is her glory

and power. Other churches feel that they have other things of which to

boast in the shape of rituals, rank, wealth, splendor of showy form and

massiveness of Cathedral buildings. These things are their glory, but the

glory of Methodism has ever been the revival. If she forfeits that, she has

lost her peculiarly distinguishing feature as well as true work and noblest

heritage, and becomes poor indeed. Giving up this she will cease to b e

blessed in herself and a blessing to others. There are few more painful

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sights than the spectacle of a Methodist congregation patterning in various

ways after some cold, worldly, ritualistic church. It argues the

forgetfulness of her origin and training, the ignoring of the secret of her

past success, and the laying down of her mighty weapon of glory and

victory.

All churches ought to believe in revivals, if they believe in the Bible. There

they are mentioned again and again as the result of the people turning to

God with repentance, faith and prayer. There were revivals in the time of

Moses, David, Jehosaphat, Elijah, John the Baptist and the Disciples of

Christ. All of them were remarkable in their wide reaching results and were

accredited by the presence and power of God. As for the Savior, His

course all through the entire country was marked by revivals. Women

lifted up their voices under his preaching, saying, “Blessed is the womb

that bare thee, and the breast that gave thee suck.” Unclean spirits cried

out under his presence and sermons; defrauders rectified the wrongs of the

past; unholy Magdalenes became pure; multitudes hung on his words;

many shouted aloud his praises, and many others forsook all and followed

him. What was all this but a sweeping revival. Let only a few of these

scenes take place in a pastorate and instantly a letter would go forward to

the church paper declaring that God had visited his people and a time of

refreshing had come.

The spiritual movement of the church reminds one of the flight of a bird.

Close scrutiny reveals that the bird does not fly in a straight line where

every point is equally distant from the earth; but rises by a rapid

movement of the wings to a higher altitude and then slides down a plane of

atmosphere. Then it flutters again, rises again, and slides down again as

before. The rapid beat of the wings overcomes the law of gravitation. Then

as the movement is discontinued the earth asserts its power and brings the

bird down. The study of any church will reveal this to be its similar

course. It rises into higher experience and holier living through increased

observance of the means of grace, which is a flutter of spiritualness. In the

force gathered, it not only rises, but rushes forward with accelerated and

easily recognized momentum. Then comes after awhile a downward

inclination and movement to the world. After this is held another

protracted meeting, there follows a revival rise, a rush forward, and

another letting down.

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Many suppose this is a normal and proper state. But what is right in the

bird is not the best flight possible to the church. An annual flutter of the

church’s wings in the shape of a revival is a great deal better than no flutter

at all. But what the church wants is a continuous flutter. The bird is not

going to heaven, but the church is; so let the wings of Zion be constantly

in motion. The day is coming when the life and progress of the church

shall be marked, not by an undulating course, but by a straight line that

does not bend anywhere to the world. Better still, the end of the line that

once dropped earthward, will be raised heavenward, and there shall be an

increasing force and accumulating life and glory all the while.

In the last days, John says, there shall be seen an angel flying through the

midst of the heavens having the everlasting gospel to preach. That angel is

the church, for no one but men and women can preach the gospel.

Moreover the church will be so full of love that it will look like an angel

and so full of desire to reach all men that railroads and steamers will be too

slow, and so it will invent swifter modes of travel and appear fairly flying.

The revival should remain in the church. The idea of saving men in July

and August and not in the other ten months is simply fearful. A great

many sinners die in January. The idea of the church ever letting down its

holy life and work of winning souls! There is a bird called the Paradise

Bird, that is never known to alight. Shall God’s Church be outstripped by

a bird.

The Apostolic Church after the Baptism of the Holy Ghost added daily to

their number such as should be saved. It was not an annual, monthly or

weekly work with them, but every day! So when the church shall see that

the blessing of Pentecost is a distinct work of the Holy Ghost qualifying

us for such a life and work, and when it shall be sought as a separate

blessing, then shall we enter upon an unbroken revival in the church.

Conversions will take place at every service, sanctifications will occur

while the preacher presents the doctrine, great rejoicings will fall upon the

assembly, and we will enter upon toils and triumphs that some would

confine to history and the Bible, but which, thank God, can be seen in

these present days.

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These are many and unmistakable. They are always the same. In John the

Baptist’s time, in Luther’s time, in Wesley’s days, as we look we behold

churches grown cold, preaching mechanical and professional, the Bible

neglected, the Sabbath desecrated, sin defiant, sinners not sought after, and

the houses of worship half empty.

Nor are these all the tokens of spiritual coldness and deadness. Stiffness

between the people is a sign. Do we not all know, and have we not all seen

how social frigidities and class petrifications melt away under the breath

and touch of the Holy Ghost! The Apennines sink out of sight between

France and Spain and the Atlantic dries up between Europe and America

when Christ descends and fills all hearts.

Lack of spontaneous singing is a sign. A revived congregation cannot keep

silent, they must sing and will sing. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of song and

the inspirer of praises; so when He is present He makes Himself known in

that way through the lips of the people. So set it down as a fact that the

absence of spontaneous and general singing declares the presence of

spiritual death. The dead sing not. The tongue of a corpse is silent and

motionless.

Dressiness is a sign. We are not here advocating a fanatical undress

system, but speak of that richness and gaudiness against which the

Scripture clearly speaks. A rule is that just as people recede from God do

they emphasize dress, and the measure or grade of spiritual condition is

clearly revealed externally. Nor is this all, but the farther down we go amid

the ranks of the ungodly, the more we are impressed with the increasing

stress laid upon dress. It is well known that sparkling ornaments, striking

colors, and general gaudiness mark those that are farthest from heaven.

While on the street the flashy style shows the abandoned woman, and the

showy dress of the sport and gambler is equally significant.

Church entertainments is another sign. When God’s people have to be

coaxed by food and amusements to give to His cause, then are they

spiritually in a bad way. The church entertainment is a mistake all around.

It is a social mistake, for it nearly always produces misunderstandings and

ruptures. It is an ecclesiastical mistake, for it brings the church into

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contempt before the world. It is a financial mistake, for such proceedings

dry up the fountain of liberality, and prevent the spontaneous and

sacrificing giving that God desires and demands. It is a religious mistake,

for it will produce deadness in any church that undertakes them. When a

genuine revival comes how these things disappear. Christ in spirit

overturns the tables and banishes the merchandise again as He once did in

Jerusalem.

Absence of conversions is a final sign of spiritual weakness and death.

God says when Zion travails then sons and daughters are born unto God.

Travail we know is an agony. It requires this upon the part of the church

to bring about the salvation of sinners. In true revivals this is always seen.

When a church is without it there may be accessions but no conversions.

Look around and see if this travail or agony of soul is upon the

congregations you know. Look at the faces in pulpit, pew and choir.

Listen to the people talking on their way home from church. Who is in

concern. Look in closets for forms bowed and eyes weeping over men

falling into hell. What Nehemiah is there who surveys at night a desolate

Jerusalem with tears? What Moses is saying, “Save these people, Lord, or

blot my name out of the book”? What Fletcher stains his walls with the

breath of prayer, and what Knox falls upon his face with sobs praying,

“Give me these souls or I die?”

Cannot anyone see why the altars are not lined with weeping penitents?

Why should they be there? What is being done to bring them? What is

there in our words and lives and appearance to make men smite their

breasts and say, what must we do to be saved?

Are not all these signs of lost or absent power? Something is lacking or

something is gone. Samson can shake himself, but he cannot overwhelm

the Philistines. Oh, for God’s people to humble themselves, fall on their

faces and weep before God! How soon the sound of a going in the trees of

life would be heard, and salvation sweep the land like a cyclone. Alas,

there are no lack of signs of spiritual coldness. There are too many if

anything.

Some one was once looking at a row of small houses on a cold winter day.

Every one had snow on the roof but one. It needed no Solomon to give the

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reason. The snow-roofed houses had no fires burning inside. The

exceptional dwelling did, and so the warm atmosphere within had affected

even the shingles, and the icy mantle had slipped off. So there is no trouble

today to tell what churches are spiritually fireless. Frost in the pulpit,

snow in the choir, and icicles in the pew, tell the sad story that the holy

fire burns low or has gone out. It is vain to call the congealed condition of

things “decency and order” and dignity. God knows better and the world

knows better. All can see that the Holy Ghost fire has been quenched. The

snow is on the roof. Or to change the figure the sun is down, winter has

come, a polar night has settled, the old ship of Zion is caught among the

floes, icebergs are grinding all around, and the best hope is for a Relief

Expedition in the shape of a revival in order that some may be saved.

There are problems in the church. No thoughtful person will deny that

they are numerous and of grave character. The souls of many of God’s

children are burdened with them; the tongues, pens, brains and hearts of

scores of the most gifted in Zion are busy in suggesting, devising and

executing in order to bring about a happier state of affairs. But the

problems seem to defy solution.

One is the social problem. How are we to bring people of different classes

together in Christian fellowship? The rich and poor have but one Maker,

how are we to get them to believe this and act according to their faith?

How are we going to make diverse classes feel they are brethren and melt

them with a common love and fire them with a single purpose. Can

Christianity accomplish this? If not, then must the gospel be counted

another one of the great failures of mighty efforts projected on this line. If

the religion of Jesus can do it, and has not yet, then is there some grace or

blessing in the Divine system not yet generally known by the followers of

Christ.

Then there is the feud problem. We have people in the church is every

stage of coolness toward each other from the Temperate through the Frigid

Zone up to the North Pole itself where the ice never melts, where

everything is frozen solidly through the entire year, and Inaccessibility

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sways the icicle scepter over the snowy region. How can the people who

dwell in these different zones be brought together in kindness and love,

and this reproach upon the cause of Christ be taken away? They have

been visited, talked to and prayed with. Every new minister tries his hand

on them. He sails to the Northern regions where they live, walks over ice

fields that are ten, twenty and thirty years old, and searches in vain for the

parties who are responsible for this dazzlingly white, shiveringly smooth

and cuttingly severe state of things. They of course are never to be found,

and finally he is rescued himself, nearly frozen to death, by his pulpit

successor.

There is the financial problem. This I find to be general. Preachers,

stewards and deacons everywhere are wrestling with it. The church may

be small or large, in village or metropolis, it matters not; the same anxious

question is before them all: How can we meet one thousand with five

hundred, and five thousand with three thousand, and ten thousand with

seven thousand? Money seems always to be tight and hard to come at

according to the Monetary Boards of Zion. Each new member is taught in

a single meeting to carry on his brow the mournful interrogation “How?”,

and on the second meeting to say with the drooping mouth “We cannot.”

A friend of the writer once labored in a church that was groaning under a

fifteen hundred dollar financial problem; and yet there sat before him nine

men whose aggregated wealth was over ten millions of dollars. In an

official meeting to consider the debt, they were all bowed down in spirit

with the question, “How can we raise fifteen hundred dollars?”

There is the missionary problem. How are we going to win the world for

Christ? There is and can be no more important question. And yet at the

rate we are going how far off does the solution appear to the thoughtful

man. Over one hundred millions of heathen children are born every year.

How many converts does the church make? What if the heathen children

are born faster than the people become Christians!

There is the problem of great evils in the land. I mean the presence of

wrong institutions, of demoralizing and corrupting agencies in our midst,

the gambling den, saloon, club, and house of shame and death.

There is the empty bench problem. Few churches but have them. Some

have more than others. Some have more benches unoccupied than

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occupied. I have seen twenty filled and forty unfilled. I have seen two

filled and sixty without a soul in them. What is the matter? What shall we

do with these empty benches? How shall we fill them with men, women

and children?

There is the salvation problem. The church was sent out by Christ to be a

Saving Institution; not to amuse, entertain, with mongrel features of

restaurant and theater and lyceum. It is to save souls and bring the world

to Christ. This is its one business, and the when and how has long ago

been told to her by the Savior Himself. Is it not strange that the church

should be sending here and there for men to help us do, or teach us how to

do what every Christian congregation in the land ought to know and ought

to be doing continually? And yet the problem is before us today, and

never has the question gone up more frequently, How shall we get men

converted to God and fully saved?

I repeat that there are problems in the church; and I repeat that there is a

blessed way of solving them. God has a grace and blessing that if sought

and obtained will immediately give the triumphant answer to every one of

these questions. The pity is that men will not go to God in this matter,

and in the way He lays down; and so time is lost and failure is protracted

and perpetuated by the substitution of human wisdom and methods for a

Divine plan that has never been known to fail.

Look and see how wise and even good people are trying to meet the

troubles I have mentioned.

The social problem is handled by parlor receptions at the pastor’s home or

at the church. Looked at from a distance it seems to be a success, but after

all is over the various sets and circles retire to their respective zones. It is

also afterward remembered that the cordiality and friendliness seen was

exchanged between parties already friendly. There were long lines of

human icicles that bordered the walls, and great lumps of chilly material

that formulated in groups or froze in icebergs of various size. True, some

noble spirit who did much to bring about the “Reception” and whose own

heart was warm will say it was a glorious occasion; but in after days he

will recall that he did all the running. He ran to the congested groups, the

groups did not run to him. In fact he ran so much and was so melted

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himself that he thought everybody else was running and everybody else

melted.

The feud problem is undertaken and managed with like success. The

offending parties are told their duty, of which they were perfectly aware

before. The guilty one is sought after but cannot be found. Both are

innocent. Everybody is right. What is wanted is the Searcher of hearts!

God coming down in mighty power upon the soul. Then would each one

cry out: “I have sinned,” and each one say, “I am the chief of sinners.”

The Christian work problem is likewise undertaken. Each preacher thinks

he has the secret. The pet scheme is to form new bands or start some fresh

societies. Whenever a preacher fails to obtain a revival, he organizes a

society of some kind. If his ministry is not spiritual or remarkable in

winning souls to God, he will either form a Chautauqua Circle in his

church or create a Chautauqua Institute in the neighborhood. Especially

does the organizing mania possess him. It looks like life, real life had

entered into the inactive body, especially during the election of the

President, secretary and Treasurer. But the movement was not born of real

life, it was simply an electric shock that moved the limbs and raised the

eyelids for a second, and all was still again. It was a rocking chair and not a

steam-car movement. The delusion with some is that organization

produces life, when nature and grace both alike teach that life produces

organization.

The financial problem is grappled with. And this is the way it is handled.

Laymen are sought after who understand finance. Merchants, lawyers and

bankers are coveted for the church and when secured are promptly put on

the official board. Preachers who know how to lift a collection are sought

after far and wide, for pastors. Especially the minister who knows how to

get money out of outsiders is felt to be beyond price. The brother who has

a new and good method for raising church funds is like an angel from the

skies. The man who invented the weekly envelope system is worthy of

being canonized. And yet in spite of all these bankers, lawyers, preachers

and inventive geniuses with cards and envelopes, the problem remains

unsolved. The bankers themselves give it up.

The missionary problem is grasped. Two or three new secretaries are

thrown into the field, and the gaze of the people directed in horizontal

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lines that end in man instead of the vertical that lifts the eye to God. Little

savings banks are distributed among the people. Surely this device will

succeed, especially if we write the words China or Brazil on the little clay

or iron toy. Suddenly some one suggests that the women and children be

organized into missionary bands and societies. All the men are enthused

with the idea. The bankers and merchants think it is the very thing.

Certainly! let the women and children help the struggling, suffering men.

Another cry is made and this time we are told that the hens of the

barnyard ought to be a mighty factor in settling the missionary question.

At once “missionary hens” abound. The women and children are forgotten

for a few moments while the church turns a distracted gaze at the motherly

old hens clucking over the land. If ever hens had a burden upon them, and a

great moral obligation to lay eggs rapidly, it was when the church to which

we belong, representing hundreds of millions of dollars, fell on its knees so

to speak before those aforesaid hens and turning its agonized eyes upon

them, said, “Lay us eggs for the missionary cause or we are undone.”

The empty bench problem is taken in hand. This is variously worked at

through the medium of stately edifices, carpeted aisles, cushioned seats,

paid choirs, and talented, drawing preachers.

The salvation problem is undertaken. How shall souls be saved? At first it

was thought to be difficult, but there were some who assured the church

that the whole matter was very easy, that it consisted simply in raising the

right hand. Numbers were thus saved. Truly it appeared easy and was all

very delightful and astonishing; but when it was noticed that there was no

change in the face at the time and none in the life afterward, some doubted

this plan still there were other methods. One consisted in standing on the

feet until the heads were counted. Another was going into a room to be

talked and prayed with. Many went into the room to see what was going

on, and some who were conversed with had been Christians for forty

years. Yet they were all counted as new converts by the manipulator of

the meeting. If these methods fail, then the next effort is to get them to join

the church. By and by the preacher and people become accustomed to and

contented with this arrangement. Listen to the reports made at Conference

where the number of accessions and amount of money collected is

emphasized and rung out, and scarcely anything said about conversions.

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Evidently, none of these things spoken of are able to meet the difficulties

that exist in the church. Constant failure through the centuries ought to

convince the most skeptical.

Something else is needed: And that something is the subject of this

discourse. The Revival as taught in the Gospel and epistles, and as seen in

the second chapter of Acts, is the true solution of every problem in the

church. We want the abiding presence of Christ, the descending sweep of

the Holy Ghost, the overwhelming power of the Triune God. Let such a

revival come and every question will be answered and every problem

immediately solved.

There will be no trouble to bring the people together. There will scarcely

be any necessity for introductions, and no need to beg people to visit

other people. They will come together with a rush, drawn by the

tremendous attractive power of Jesus Christ, suddenly implanted or set

up in each.

The individual family and church feuds will end as suddenly as they began.

Faster than the deer casts his antlers, the snake his skin, or the warm roof

slips off the snow, will all these bickerings and animosities disappear.

They will feel as did a certain man when suddenly filled with all the

fullness of God—” O for an enemy in order to forgive him and love him.”

If you have quarrels in your churches, aim at once for a revival. Nothing

else will destroy them. I once saw five different family feuds settled in as

many minutes when the Holy Ghost had fallen in power on a morning

service.

There will be no trouble in raising money. When the disciples had a

genuine revival the Gospel says they sold all they had and no one was

allowed to suffer. The various denominations have drifted so far from that

apostolic spirit that they seem unable to appreciate that beautiful act.

Men call the sacrifices of love of that day socialism and fanaticism. But is

it not wonderful how the Holy Ghost fell on those so-called socialists and

fanatics. Chrysostom says that the church at Antioch supported fifteen

thousand dependent persons! While some congregations today groan if

they have eight or ten needy individuals on their list. I remember once a

board of stewards who for years grumblingly allowed four dollars a month

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to a poor widow. The cause of this difference seen here was that the

churches in Jerusalem and Antioch had a revival, the very thing we need all

over the land today. When that revival comes the financial problem will be

solved, and not till then.

The missionary money question will be settled when the Pentecost

Revival comes. Before it arrives what begging and arguing, what

demonstrating and what running around is required to secure some

contemptible amount. Who is not familiar with the humiliating and painful

spectacle of one man standing in the altar facing a crowd, while the

oft-repeated and unreplied to call “Who will give five dollars,” falls upon

the ear with the regularity and monotonousness of the voice of an

auctioneer.

Let the true revival come and such a scene as this will take place. A quiet

statement by the preacher that so much money is needed for the Lord, a

simple pointing to the altar table near by, a calm invitation to come—and

then lines of people will move down upon the table and streams of money

will be heard pouring on its surface. I have repeatedly seen this take place.

At one time there had been a revival. Money was called for on church

questions, and it rained, rattled and poured on the table until it rolled off

on the ground. The sum needed was given and one thousand dollars over.

In another place and in the midst of a revival blaze, the missionary call was

made, and the immediate and rushing response was gold, silver, bales of

cotton, and a note from a gifted woman, saying, “I give myself.”

Brethren, let us eat up all the missionary hens in the land, give the little

earthen jugs and savings banks to the children for toys, and have a grand,

glorious, overwhelming revival. If it comes, as certain as God lives and

reigns the missionary problem will be solved.

The revival will also settle the matter of Christian work. A preacher will

not have to point out work to the people and beg them to do it. Neither

will they have to come to the preacher to find out what to do. They will

suddenly discover and make work for themselves. When the Holy Ghost

fills a man—mind you I fills him—that man has a fire in his bones and

cannot keep quiet. Can you sit still with a fire burning your body? Neither

can you rest with fire burning in your soul. When the holy fire came upon

Isaiah he cried out, “Here am I, Lord; send me,” and sprung to his life

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work. When the Baptism of Fire fell on the disciples, from that time to the

day of their death they fairly flew to do the bidding of God. This is the

blessing we need, one that will be like fire in the bones, such a burning as

will lift people out of their late morning beds, and out of their easy rocking

chairs, and drive them out from their pleasant parlors and libraries into the

roads of the country and the streets of the city to save souls and bless

mankind. A genuine revival will kindle that fire. We need no more

organizations, no more church machinery; we have enough today to

bewilder a church of twice our size. What we want is fire! Lord God of

Heaven, send it down everywhere on the church as it once fell on Mt.

Carmel, and afterwards on the day of Pentecost.

The Revival will solve the empty bench problem. The apostolic revival

means that Christ has come in unclouded glory and in fullness of salvation.

When Christ comes, the people come. He said long ago, “If I be lifted up I

will draw all men unto me.” The church seems not to have realized the

blessed truth. If we want the people to come, we must first get Christ to

come, and when He is lifted up and felt to be there—the audience will be

there.

A revival means a good time and good things for the church. Let the world

see that we have something better than they possess, and it is in human

nature to come at once and see. The people cannot be kept away when we

are happy in the love of God. Let us show that we are glad, blessed,

overflowing with the grace and glory of the Redeemer, and a great hunger

and thirst, a mighty desire will come upon the people to obtain what we

enjoy. There will be no need to ask them to come and fill the empty

benches of the church; they will come without being asked, and there will

be no empty benches to fill. You will not be able to keep the crowd away.

A man might as well try to sweep the waves of an incoming tide back into

the sea with a broom, as to keep people from coming to a church or

building where a real revival is going on. The Sanhedrin might as well have

tried to beat back the north wind with the palms of the hands, as to

prevent the inhabitants of Jerusalem from rushing toward the Upper

Room when the Holy Ghost fell and a genuine revival swept down out of

heaven into the souls and lives of the people of God.

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Who cares to visit a church to see a few lines of people all stiff and frozen

sitting all upright in their pews with no more warmth and response than is

beheld in a set of statues. I can see stiff lines of people in the street cars or

in fashion plates, but when I go to church let me look on something

different. And when there is something different there, when hearts are

warm and souls are glad, and faces shine with the light of salvation, the

world will rush to church as they did at Pentecost.

The revival will solve the salvation problem. It requires a certain

atmosphere of prayer, a certain spiritual warmth or heat in the church

before conversions can take place. Let that condition prevail and the

salvation of souls will be frequent, beautiful and clear as I have seen grains

of popcorn suddenly expanded burst forth into forms of snowy whiteness

through the heated air of the oven. No need to ask such people if they are

saved; they will announce the fact themselves in tones and with words

that will thrill every heart. There will not only be individual cases, but

penitents will come through the gate of mercy in rejoicing bands; the Spirit

will mow down lines at a time. The altar will be swept from end to end,

filled again, and emptied again by the mighty pardoning and cleansing

power of God. The faces of the converts will be epistles upon which will

be seen the unmistakable handwriting of God. Their cries of rapture and

shouts of joy will pierce the hearts of the backslider and sinner, other and

deeper convictions will take place, and salvation will roll on with the

majestic accumulating force and irresistible power of an ocean tide.

What the church wants today is not a shower of blessing, not even a down

pour;—but a torrent, leaping and dashing down the hills of heaven upon

us; a resistless tide of salvation that shall wash away all forms of sin from

the streets of Zion and leave her clean and beautiful; a perfect Noah Deluge

of grace and glory that will overtop the mountains of sin, bury worldliness

out of sight, while the redeemed, shut in the ark of Christ Jesus, sail

triumphantly over the dead forms of iniquity far beneath them.

What the church wants is a revival, deep, broad, profound, far-reaching,

heart-searching, life-changing, permanent and Pentecostal. Such a revival

would settle at once every difficulty, and solve every problem. We are

simply wasting time and energy in trying to do anything else until we

secure that. We are making no progress. We are trotting hard all day in the

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shade of one tree. We are climbing up ten feet one day and slipping back

nine feet and twelve inches the next day. Sometimes we slip still lower.

We are beating the air.

It would pay the church to turn its attention from every enterprise in its

walls and borders and go to seeking a revival. It would pay the church to

shut up stores and offices, leave boats and plantations, give up

money-making and money-saving, let the missionary work alone for a

year, let everything alone, forget almost to eat and sleep,—and falling on

its knees and face pray God importunately, continuously, persistently and

inconsolably for a revival, and do this if needs be for a year.

O, how it would pay! How the world would stand in awe. How Christ

would come as John saw Him on Patmos. How God would bend the

heavens. The Holy Ghost would rush upon us with the sweep of a storm

and speak to us through living tongues of fire, while sinners would cry out

for mercy, saints rejoice in the fullness of salvation, money be poured out

like water before the Lord, every work and enterprise of the church bear

the smiles and blessings of heaven upon it, and Christ’s kingdom become

the reigning, triumphant, overshadowing kingdom of the world.

O Son of God, O blessed Jesus, send us the revival of Pentecost! May all

the people say Amen.

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CHAPTER 2

HOW TO OBTAIN A REVIVAL

The Lord Jesus has not only come to the world, but is willing to enter the

individual heart. This coming is what is needed above all things! It is what

the nations need. It is the desirable thing for the community and the

family. Above all it is everything to the soul.

When Christ comes it is at once recognized. There is no need to enter into

an argument to prove that the Spirit of the Lord has fallen upon a

congregation and fills the church. The instant this takes place it is known. I

recall once in a revival meeting that on the fifth day the Holy Ghost fell on

the audience, and the house was filled with glory. A gentleman leaped to

his feet with the thrilling cry—”Jesus has come!” He only spoke what

every one felt and knew.

In like manner when Christ enters the soul, the fact cannot be concealed.

As the Scripture said of Him that when He entered a certain house He

could not be hid, so is it still; to enter the heart with His blessed grace and

glory so illumines the face, softens the heart, sweetens the spirit and fires

the life, that all can see that Jesus has come.

In a great revival conducted by Dr. Finney, in a New England town, an

unconverted man felt the presence of God one mile beyond the

corporation lines. In First Church, St. Louis, during the gracious six weeks’

meeting I held, a number of persons said that they felt the Divine presence

not only when they entered the building, but even before crossing the

portal. He that drew a line around Mt. Sinai, and made it to come to pass

that whoever crossed it was shot through with a dart, still draws the

marvellous circle and manufactures the same flaming arrows that penetrate

the most callous with a sense of the Divine presence.

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The coming of Christ means salvation we all know. But it also means

blessedness. One cannot secure Christ without being blessed; whether

nation, community, family or individual it is all the same; the presence of

Jesus and blessedness go together.

The interesting thought is how to secure that coming and presence. That is

the important inquiry of this sermon.

It is true that He has a right to come, and His coming brings a blessing, but

such is His nature and such is our nature, that He will not come until He is

asked to come. It is curious to see how we wait for invitations before going

to certain places, and yet look for the Lord to force Himself upon us. I

notice that even the kings of earth expect and tarry for invitations to visit

cities and nations. So does the King of heaven; He never comes to dwell

with us until we ask Him.

We all find it a very difficult and oftentimes an impossible thing to go

where we are not wanted. The fact that we are longed for and expected

makes for us a sunlight of happiness and generates an atmosphere in which

the soul is perfectly free and at its best. There are places where some of

you are so desired that you feel actually drawn as by a magnet to the

individual or circle.

It is well for us to remember that we are made in the image of God, and

that He has transplanted or reproduced in us certain sensibilities and

motions of the Divine breast. It is evident that the Savior is much freer in

some churches and in the lives of some people than in others. He is not

able to do mighty works in certain hearts and localities, being tied up by

unbelief.

So He is powerless to reveal His most delightful features, or even to show

Himself at all to some persons or places because He is not wanted. Christ

does not propose to come where He is not yearned for. In fact He cannot

do so. The reason can be found in our free agency, and also in the

sensitiveness of the Divine love. But only let us sigh for His presence and

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yearn for His companionship and lo, He will suddenly and gladly appear

in our midst. He is the desire of the nations already in being what we need

for salvation, happiness and usefulness, but He must also be desired with

ardent longings of the heart if we would possess this “Chief among ten

thousand and the one altogether lovely.”

We read in history that when earthly potentates determined to visit a

town or province that the people prepared the roads for his coming.

Sometimes a special highway was constructed; and always work was put

forth on the thoroughfare along which Royalty was expected. Even in the

reception of our friends we see a preparation of this sort in the sweeping

of the yard and front steps, the removal of every unsightly thing and the

putting in place still other things that would serve to grace the occasion

and please the eye of the visitor. So we must prepare the way for the

Lord.

If there is no preparation, He will not come. This fact explains why some

men are today unconverted and others unsanctified. They have not done

the things that the Lord desires and demands. It is also well to state that

some preparation is no preparation. I recall certain protracted meetings

that were projected on a grand scale in regard to dimension of hall, number

of chairs; thickness of sawdust, and lines of electric lights. There was also

a broad gallery for the best singers in the city, and a deep platform for

prominent workers and preachers. Everything was furnished but the one

essential thing, the falling fire of the Holy Ghost. Every preparation had

been made save the indispensable one of humbling the heart and

prostrating body and soul in the dust before the Lord. This was never

done, and so the gigantic material preparation came to naught. What does

God care for chairs, sawdust, electric lights, drilled musicians and general

ecclesiastical display! If He gave the victory under such circumstances

men would suppose that the great platform and big workers did it.

Some preparation is no preparation. All of us are getting to see this. I saw

once in one of our largest cities the walls placarded with flaming posters

telling the public that all the ministers of the city had united in a certain

meeting; that all the choirs of these churches had joined together; and that a

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most successful national evangelist would lead the battle! This famous

meeting dragged its way along for a month and ended as it began, in wind.

In still another city forty churches combined to get up (?) a revival. The

forty pastors sat on a great platform with leading laymen, and the greatest

orators among them vied with each other night after night to see who could

over-shoot or out-blaze the other. As a test of forensic excellence it was a

success, but as a Holy Ghost revival it was from start to finish an utter

failure. It lasted about forty days, and afterwards the people were

ahungered. The papers announced at the beginning that these forty

clergymen were going to have a revival, and columns were devoted to the

first few services, but something was so evidently lacking, that the press

finally quit reporting the wretched travesty of a revival, and the human

spurt ended its feeble and short life without a mourner and without an

obituary.

Some preparation is no preparation. What are carpets and chandeliers and

carved pews and trained singers to God! Does He care for these things?

Can He who hung out sun, moon and stars for lights, and painted the

Western sky, and carpeted the earth, and put melody in wind, wave, and

throats of myriads of birds be bribed into coming to us by our tawdry

ecclesiastical finery and platform yelling? He dwelt once for centuries in a

tent, and filled the log meeting houses of our forefathers with His excellent

glory. Evidently He wants another kind of preparation.

Some preparation is no preparation. Saul got ready for Him in his way.

Alas for the King of Israel that it was his way and not the Divine way. He

even became so impatient to have the Lord to come, that he offered the

sacrifice with his own hands; but the skies were locked, and there was no

response. He afterwards said about it with a bitter wail, “He answereth me

no more; neither by prophets nor by dreams.” God was both silent and

invisible. He will only come in His way.

Some preparation is no preparation. The prophets of Baal slew their

sacrifices and placed it on the altar and cried from morning until noon.

They even cut themselves with lancets until their blood gushed, but there

was no answer from the skies. The great vault above was as empty, still,

and echoless as if there was no God.

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Men are finding out that some preparation is no preparation. The sooner

all discover it the better. The church that waits unavailingly on God for

days and nights without answering fire from heaven, may reasonably feel

alarm. And the man who declares he is seeking God and cannot find Him;

who says he has done all he can and Christ does not come into his heart

and life, may know once for all, that he has overlooked some heavenly

condition, neglected some essential duty; in a word, he has not prepared

the way of the Lord.

This was what was done in constructing a highway for earthly kings; the

valleys were exalted or filled up. The spiritual meaning is that if we desire

the Savior to come into our lives the great vacancies and hollows of life

standing for neglected prayer, omitted Bible reading and other forsaken

duties must be attended to. There are many such ignored and despised

obligations. Like valleys they yawn before us, and how deep they are.

They must be filled.

This was necessary to make a road worthy for a king to travel upon in the

olden times. It is what is done today to give us the iron thoroughfares of

commerce; the valley is filled up and the hill is cut down. It is what we are

to do to get Christ to enter our churches and hearts with glorious power

pride is a mountain; unbelief is a mountain. There are many high things

that have to come down before the Savior will ever sweep into our souls.

I visited the Appian Way when I was in Rome and observed that it ran as

straight as an arrow. If earthly monarchs desire straight highways upon

which to travel, how much more does a holy God. Christ will not come to

the soul upon any other than a straight way; He will not travel upon a

crooked route. Before He saved Saul of Tarsus He made him move on a

street called “Straight.” And on that same street we all have to live if we

would know Jesus. We must do the straight thing, get straight with

everybody, and determine to live the straight life. The instant a man does

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this the Spirit rushes into him. The moment a church gets right with God

the Lord enters.

Men ask God to straighten them, when this is our duty and work. The

command is to us, to “prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths

straight.”

I have never failed to notice, that if a man will straighten his outward life,

God will straighten the inward nature. This is not a salvation by works,

but that rectification of conduct and life without which God will not look

upon us, much less fill us with His glorious presence,

Now, let us look at this straightening, which is the preparation Christ

demands as the condition of His coming unto and into us.

First, of course, is repentance.

This is not only in the order, but in the very necessity of things. We must

grieve with a godly sorrow for what we have done or left undone toward

God. Just as the hand is not extended nor smile given by the parent if the

child shows no compunction; so are the heavens like impenetrable brass

and God is silent to the impenitent soul. Let the heart swell with grief, let

the lips say, “I am sorry,” and ere the tears can fall from the eyes, the

angels are rejoicing in heaven over the scene. They know what it means;

that the skies are opening, the Spirit descending and salvation rushing to

that soul.

In Ezra we read that the Jews trembled before God at the remembrance of

their transgressions. The rain fell upon them as they stood in the street,

but they endured every discomfort that they might find peace with God.

Of course the Divine blessing came.

When I saw the Jews in their Wailing Place in Jerusalem, I had a vision of

the luxury and blessedness of tears. Oh, that the people everywhere would

begin to weep before God. Oh, for melted hearts and wet eyes in every

pew of the church as well as around the altar. These very tears would be

as telescopes to the penitent soul to see into the heavens, and as a mighty

influence to bring the Lord down into our hearts. A weeping or grieving

child draws the parent instantly to its side, and so, thank God, it is the

same in the spiritual life.

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Another preparation is the forsaking of every known sin.

It is utterly vain to expect Christ to take possession of us while there is

committed sin in the life. The face of the Lord was turned from His people

at Ai because of a single transgression. Until the golden wedge and

Babylonish garment buried under the tent was dug up and burned, the

Divine countenance remained averted, and Israel blundered about in

darkness, confusion and galling defeat. If I regard iniquity in my heart,

says David, the Lord will not hear me. Think of a clerk asking forgiveness

of a merchant with stolen money in his pocket. And what if the merchant

knows it. How can one ask and the other extend pardon. The thing is

morally impossible. The Bible distinctly states that it is our iniquities that

separate us from God. If this be so, then the giving up of these iniquities

must be the condition of restored Divine nearness and favor. As I have

heard people repeatedly affirming the impossibility of living without sin, I

have wondered at the ignorance shown in such speeches of the Word of

God. S o far is it from being impossible for a child of God to live a

blameless life, the Bible distinctly states that the unconverted man himself

“Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts;

and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him; and to

our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

A third preparation is restitution.

This indeed is included in the previous thought, but deserves a distinct

notice. It is wonderful how careless some people are here. They give up

the ball room and theater at the demand of the gospel, and yet slur over or

forget certain wrongs of the past that should be rectified. The Savior

Himself distinctly tells us when we come to His altar with our gift and

remember such a wrong, to hunt up the aggrieved brother and make all

right with him first, and then come to the altar. Zaccheus had the matter

right when he exclaimed, “If I have taken anything from any man—I

restore him four fold.”

Recently a ministerial brother told me of a man whom he had met in the

West, and who had become deeply convicted in his meeting, went

repeatedly to the altar, but could not obtain the grace of pardon and

salvation. Various were the charitable explanations upon the part of the

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audience, among which of course figured “intellectual difficulties.” But one

day while walking with the evangelist, he made the confession that some

years before while driving his cattle over the plain, a stray cow got in his

drove, and he sold her along with the rest. “Now,” he said, “when I come

to that altar I see that cow dashing before my eyes, and she fairly fills the

landscape. “ The preacher replied, “You must return her value to the

owner.” “This,” the man said, “I have determined to do.” And he did so,

and as he did, the joy of forgiveness swept into his soul. The animal was

only worth twenty dollars, but it was everything to Him who has

identified Himself with every wronged individual on earth, and who is

preparing a world for the pure and true and good.

A fourth is seen in Reconciliation.

The importance of this is seen in the words of the Savior, “If you forgive

not men their trespasses neither will your heavenly Father forgive you

your trespasses.” Surely no reasoning, or argument is needed here to show

the necessity of this transaction. Christ will not come into an unforgiving

soul. But how gladly will He show mercy to the merciful.

One of the greatest revivals I ever witnessed began with five or six public

reconciliations one morning in church. A woman impelled by the Spirit of

God arose and openly begged pardon of another lady in the audience. In

twenty seconds they were in each others arms. A grown daughter flew

into the arms of her mother from whom she had been estranged. Two other

persons stood up and asked the pastor to forgive them for having talked

about him. With tears running down his face he extended his hands to them

telling them he had not a doubt but he deserved criticism. Two gentlemen

met each other in the aisle, locked hands, and while one confessed the

other forgave, and in a moment they were embracing with happy smiles

and shouts. So it went on, and heaven came down, and the glory of the

Transfiguration Mount seemed to fall on the whole assembly. I have

beheld many wondrous scenes of grace, but for tenderness of Spirit,

melting hearts, flaming love and pure heavenliness, I have scarcely ever

seen anything that surpassed the history of that morning. The revival

broke out that very hour, and swept on for two years afterward. It is only

another way of saying that Jesus came down and took possession of the

church.

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Fifth there are certain duties and obligations to God.

There are such Divine debts and duties. Religion is not to be confined

simply to human relations. There are two tables of the Law, and the first

had reference entirely to what is due the Lord. We owe things to men, but

we also owe things to God. We pay the butcher, baker and doctor; we

need also to be right with God on the financial as well as on other lines. It

is amazing to see how men keep their accounts straight with their fellow

men, and yet are careless in their contributions and obligations to the

church, which is the abode of their God. If we look at the dwellings that

by thousands line the streets of our great cities you will find that the vast

majority have the rental account paid up to date, but over against that is

the sorrowful and amazing fact that with the exception of one or two

endowed buildings, there is not a church in all the land but has or has had a

debt upon it. Deficits in the Missionary Treasury, deficits in the

preacher’s and sexton’s salary, and debts unsettled for coal, gas, and past

services.

Meantime the church wonders why everything feels so spiritually barren

and dead. They are serving a God who calls Himself a jealous God, and yet

wonder why He does not bless them and make them overrun with spiritual

life and gladness, when He sees every debt but His own paid, while

reproach gathers thereby on His servants, His house and His cause.

In a certain large Southern city a protracted meeting had been going on for

over a month without any drops of mercy from the skies or “sound of

going in the trees” of salvation. The best of preachers were holding forth,

and the most eloquent of prayers, and finest of singing echoed along the

arched walls and stuccoed ceiling; still the fire did not fall, and Jesus would

not manifest Himself. One morning a gentleman belonging to the church

requested other male members to meet him in the lecture room. On

assembling he said:

“You all know, brethren, that we have been trying to secure a revival here

for weeks, and we seem no nearer to it today than we did a month ago.

The question is what is the matter? That something is the matter all can

see. Has it occurred to you that the trouble is that we have been carrying a

church debt of fifteen thousand dollars for over ten years? And has it also

occurred to you that we as a congregation are amply able to pay it? It is

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my firm belief that God will never come down and fill and bless our church

until we settle this obligation. I, for one, will give one thousand dollars,

what will you do?

In less than fifteen minutes the debt which had been for years a thorn in

their sides, a reproach to their church, and a grief to God, was paid. The

same evening in the next service the heavenly fire fell, and the power of

God came down. The revival that followed saw hundreds of souls swept

into the kingdom.

See the order; invited, desired, prepared for, and besought. Even after

having been invited, and prepared for, He must be entreated to come. It is

not enough to ask and desire His coming. He must be importuned. The

simple invitation is not sufficient.

Here is the explanation of the failure of many. Numbers have said to me,

“I have asked Christ to come in; why does He not do so. I have done all I

can.” How carelessly they spoke about the matter. No wonder Christ did

not come. If the Syrophenican woman had stopped with her first request,

she never would have received that gracious look and heard the thrilling

words “great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” She swept

past the realm of careless invitation, got to begging and conquered.

The careless invitation is not regarded anywhere. Suppose you try it on

some one, or let some one try it on you. Let some person with an absent

minded look and heedless manner say, “Come down and see us sometime.”

Do you go? Have you not had thousands of such invitations, and to which

you paid no attention afterwards. But suppose the invitation is after this

style, “You must come down and see us. Wife often speaks of you. The

children constantly ask after you. The whole family told me today to be

certain to bring you. Now when will you come. Do not put it off until

tomorrow. Say you will come today, that you will go with me now. I

cannot let you off. Won’t you come?” Of course you go. How can you

help it. And then it was so pleasant to be thus constrained by people who

loved you and whom you loved.

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Do you know that God can be constrained, and that He loves us to press

our suit upon Him. Jacob never uttered more delightful words to the

Almighty than when in that midnight wrestle he said, “I will not let thee

go except thou bless me.” Just afterwards the Word says, “And He,” that

is, God, “blessed him there.” And right “there” in such a spirit and

determination and importuning and waiting we will all be blessed.

I have had people to tell me that their idea is to tell God what they want at

once, and then let the whole matter alone. These persons have not read the

Bible understandingly; and certainly they do not know yet the secret of

victory in prayer. Abraham secured the angels by running after them. The

disciples obtained the risen Christ by pressing Him to sup with them at

Emmaus. The woman from Canaan got her entire request by hanging on to

Christ in spite of three distinct rebuffs. The Capernaum nobleman invited

the Savior to come down and heal his son. The reply would have

discouraged many whom you and I know; but the nobleman turning his

tear-filled eyes upon Jesus simply said: “Come down, Lord, ere my son

die.” He begged, and Jesus went.

Have you invited Christ to come? That is not enough. Do you desire Him?

The land is full of people who desire, but do not get Him. This also is not

sufficient. Have you prepared the way for Him? Yes, you say but still He

does not come. Then the explanation is that you have neglected the

beseeching and importuning. You do not understand why that should be

done. Never mind about understanding it, only do it, and you will soon

have reason to praise God for having done so, forever and ever!

This I have found that he who prays most, knows most of God, and

possesses most of the Spirit of God. Men who like Luther, Wesley,

Brainard and others prayed three hours a day, not only obtained the mind

of Christ, but also the deepest secrets of heaven. I have also found that

importunate and persistent prayer will cause Christ to enter any life, and

descend upon any church or community. The question is who can bring

this about. I answer:

Any town, city or nation can bring the Lord down upon the people.

Nineveh clothed itself in sackcloth and turned to God with lamentation

and prayer; and the Almighty rolled away its iniquity and smiled in

pardon and peace upon the troubled inhabitants. Again and again the Jews

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as a people and nation would humble themselves before God in time of

defeat and affliction, and the Lord would descend with mighty power,

scattering their enemies and filling them with songs of praise and shouts of

victory. It can be done today. If the people of any country would

assemble in their churches and call on God with repentance, turning from

sin and looking to Christ; heaven would answer in grace and glory; and no

matter to what that nation had drifted or sunk, it would be lifted up from

that very hour in honor, prosperity, happiness and blessedness above

other nations.

But some will say we could never get an entire nation thus to wait on God,

so the suggestion is vain. If this be so then I reply:

A congregation of believers can do it. This was what was done at

Pentecost. One hundred and twenty souls, praying for ten days brought

the power of God down upon Jerusalem. The same thing can be done

today and is being done. This is what I aim for in every one of my

meetings, to get the church to praying. After a few days the result is

unmistakable in the general conviction on the town, and the clear cases of

free and full salvation at the altar. Many times I have seen whole

communities stirred and swept as a wind moves a wheat field, and the

power come down from heaven in answer to the tears and cries of God’s

people sent up day after day in the special hours set apart for prayer. It is

in the power of the church today to put the world on its knees and face.

Let the churches everywhere be filled with men and women pleading for

the salvation of sinners, and the God of heaven and earth would answer as

He only can by direct influence on mind, conscience and heart, and the

ranks of the unsaved would be swept with cyclones of conviction and

repentance, and the slain of the Lord would be everywhere.

But some one says suppose we cannot get an entire congregation to thus

unite?

Then two believers can do it.

What says the Bible, “When two on earth are agreed as touching anything,

it shall be done.”

Dr. Finney of evangelistic fame remembered this and never rested until he

had one other person agonizing in prayer with himself for an outpouring of

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the Holy Spirit upon his meeting. At one place he had a particularly long

struggle. One night after midnight while on the floor praying for God to

come, he heard the sounds of a voice in interceding prayer in the room

about him. Going to his door and listening, he discovered that it was the

voice of a godly woman in the house, and heard her sighs and sobs and

petitions that God would send down the grace and power of salvation on

the town. Dr. Finney with a happy smile closed his door and returned

triumphant to his room saying, “We have the scriptural number of two,

and shall have the victory.” It came the next day in great power.

This blessed fact saves us from despair when we find we cannot get one

hundred and twenty or even a less number of the church together to pray

down a revival. Two can do it. Christ says so. If any two agree on having a

revival, and keep praying, it shall be done, says the Son of God. But

suppose that two such people cannot be found?

Then one believer can do it.

What does the Savior say here? “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in

you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

How the Bible and life itself have proved the truth of those words. Elijah

locked and unlocked the heavens with a prayer. Elisha prayed the dead

back to life. Joshua prayed the sun and moon into stationary positions for

hours, and on another occasion prayed departed victory back to the ranks

of the discouraged children of Israel. Knox kept praying to God, “Give me

Scotland or I die,” and God gave him the land he prayed for.

Fletcher would never go into the pulpit unless he realized the Divine

presence and felt the assurance of victory. So he stained the walls of his

study with the breath of his ardent supplications. One Sabbath day the

hour of preaching had arrived, and he was not in the pulpit. The audience

waited for awhile and then some one was dispatched to his study to see

what detained him. The messenger returned saying that Mr. Fletcher was

evidently engaged in his room with some individual, for he heard him say

to him, “I will not go unless you go with me.” By and by Mr. Fletcher

appeared with his face shining. The One he had been talking to, had come

with him. All could see that. Who wonders that a steady revival flamed

and glowed in his church.

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A woman in Kentucky prayed fifteen years for a revival that would

upheave the town in which she lived. It looked to some that the prayer

would never be answered. Doubtless many smiled over that oft-repeated

supplication, “Revive thy work, Oh God in this place.” But she held on in

faith. God heard the prayer, and by a most remarkable chain of

circumstances prepared the messenger, and at last sent him to answer the

prayer of that faithful heart. She saw the town moved as it never had been

before, and hundreds converted, reclaimed and sanctified. The speaker

before you conducted that wonderful meeting.

An elderly lady in one of our largest Western cities craved to see a genuine

scriptural revival. The church which she belonged to would not pray for it.

Neither could she find another person like-minded with herself about the

matter. She determined to pray alone. She remembered the promise: “Ye

shall ask what ye will and it shall be done.” Obtaining a key to one of the

rooms in the basement of the church she began her regular morning visits

of an hour, to be spent in lonely but not the less faithful and fervent

prayer. She had been going some days when a gentleman acquaintance saw

her and asked her where she had been. She replied, “To meeting.”

“Did you have a good one,” he innocently asked.

“Yes,” she said, “We had a splendid time.”

“Who was there,” the man asked.

“The Lord and myself,” was the surprising answer.

In a few days a more general attention was excited by the lonely visitor,

and as the fact came out that she was there praying God to send a revival

upon the church and community, others smitten in conscience melted in

heart and drawn in spirit, joined her. The room was soon filled, the power

came down, and a great revival swept through the church.

Is it not enough to make your hearts leap and souls begin to burn to think

that any one of you now listening to me can pray God’s precious,

beautiful and all powerful salvation down upon worldly communities,

lifeless churches, and the sorrowful, heartbroken and lost nations of the

earth.

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Think of it! Immortal souls can be saved through us. Hell and Satan can be

defeated, and heaven peopled through our prayers. Let us be up and at it!

To your knees oh people of God. Down on your faces with sobs, tears

and cries. Who will pray. Who will keep on praying and looking and

expecting while God answers! O for a spirit of prayer such as Moses and

Paul had. O to pray all night like Jesus did. Lord, increase our faith. O

Christ, hear our prayer. O Son of God, answer by the Baptism of Fire.

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CHAPTER 3

SIN AND SALVATION

“There is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the

glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the

One of the world’s hobbies is the erection of class barriers and social

distinctions. We hear of blue blood as opposed to and superior to the red

fluid that flows through the veins of the multitude. We hear of the classes

over against the masses; and of “upper tendom” and the “five hundred.”

One would suppose from certain extreme views that there must have been

a plurality of races, and instead of one Adam there were four or five.

There are times when these differences so studiously preserved and

contended for will disappear. One is the Judgment Day. Titles, ranks,

dignities, caste and all go down together in that hour when the mountains

crash even with the plain and the skies are all aflame. No one will think of

contending for these arbitrary and evanescent creations of men when

nature is groaning in death throes, and the race is required to possess but

one thing and that character.

Another time is a period of common peril. All of us have seen the great

leveling power of a general danger. Men look and act like brothers on the

street who have not spoken before, and the woman of wealth holds

anxious converse over the garden gate with her poor neighbor as though

both had been rocked in the same cradle, and warmed at the same fireside,

and no social gulf had ever rolled between.

A third time is seen when the gospel comes down in power upon the

community. Under its light and wondrous influence, all classes and ranks

feel their marvellous likeness in moral weakness and spiritual need. As the

gospel teachings take hold upon the congregation how wonderfully alike all

become.

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So with these hints to begin with we advance the thought that in spite of

all our boasted dissimilarities in the social and intellectual life, yet in

certain all important things, there is no difference among us.

We have been born in different kinds of houses, from a palace to a hovel

and some are princes and some beggars; some see the light with a gold

spoon in their mouths, some with a silver, some with an iron, and some

with no spoon at all. Yet all are born with this bad heart.

Of course there are those who protest here, and argue and deny; but I must

believe God rather than man. The Book says we are “born in sin and

conceived in iniquity,” that “the whole head is sick,” “the whole heart

faint,” that the heart is like “a cage of unclean birds,” etc., etc.

In confirmation of this thought, we ask where does the wickedness of the

world come from. Not from the air or water. Christ says, “Out of the

heart.” Furthermore we observe that people do not have to get old to

become wicked. The ghastly crimes of this century have been committed

by young men. The vast majority of the convicts in the penitentiaries are

young men. In disturbances at religious meetings it is the rarest thing to

find elderly people guilty of misdoing, but nearly always the misconduct

springs from those in their teens. The heart is evidently born bad.

In rebuttal of this, men say to me, that they know some people who have

never been converted, and are not religious, and yet are kind, nice, and

lovely altogether.

The answer I give to this is that there are several ways to account for these

lovely, respectable and well behaved sinners. One is the absence of

favoring circumstance. They have not yet had the peculiar conditions

surrounding them that will sap their fancied strength in a moment and

show them how ignorant they have been of themselves. Another reason is

the fear of conscience. There are people today who would gladly sin, but

they are not willing to endure the mental agony that they know is certain

to come as the result. So they behave themselves. A third reason is fear of

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public opinion. And a fourth, the dread of civil punishment. In a word

there is restraint upon them. See how it works.

Did you ever look on a city prison or penitentiary and notice how well

behaved and orderly the convicts were? What is the matter with them?

The answer is Fear! If they do not behave they will be loaded with chains

and dumped into the dark cell with bread and water. So look at the people

on the street. How well behaved these unconverted people are. What

makes them so nice and law abiding. The fact is they must do right or be

punished. I have looked at a large venomous reptile in a glass box. How

mild and well mannered he was. But we all knew if he was out, what stings

would be given by his fangs, or what cracking of bones there would be

under his twisting folds. The box made him orderly. So have we all seen

the cobra-gleam in the eye of men and women who would sting and crush

if they could, but the glass box of public opinion or civil punishment kept

them orderly and harmless.

But that is not the case with me says some one. Then there are three

explanations to be given, one is that you are sanctified and the heart is

pure. Or as a regenerated man you are living in prayer and keeping down

the dark nature in you; or third, if you are an unconverted man the

declaring circumstance of your life has not yet come.

Something of the deep inborn depravity of the heart, and its terrible

possibilities is seen in the lives of Hazael, Robespierre, and Tamerlane.

The first of these three was much shocked when Elisha with prophetic

vision told him how he was going to desolate the land and murder the

people even to the women and children. But he lived to see the day when

be did all the dreadful things the prophet said he would.

As for Robespierre we read that in his early manhood he resigned a certain

municipal position because he was required to pronounce sentence of

death on the guilty. In ten or fifteen years from that time he was an

incarnate devil and the guillotine in Paris was constantly falling on the

necks of people at his command. As for Tamarlane we are told in history

that he was like other youths in the beginning of his life, at one time

weeping over a dead bird, but the inborn devil arose in his heart and

through his power over a million people were slain.

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In the early part of their lives there was seen no greater sign of wickedness

than is seen in most children and youths. The peculiar ferocity and

devilishness that made millions to mourn had not yet appeared. There was

no call for it. It slumbered on. But the favoring circumstance at last came,

and the full inward blackness and badness sprang forth to the horror and

mourning of multitudes.

A horrible thought is that when this latent evil comes forth in any of its

myriad expressions it appears full grown! Did any of you ever notice that

when a certain provocation came to you and you fell into some kind of

wrong doing, that the sin was full grown. That when you got angry, it was

no case of evolution, but you were mad all over at once. The passion or

fury did not develop but leaped out of the heart, and from eye to lip, full

fledged, completely armed or entirely grown as the case may be. You had

no infant on your hands requiring care, but a giant altogether managing

you.

And yet only the day before you had made the remark how gentle and

kind you felt toward everybody. You were patting yourself on the head so

to speak and smoothing yourself down when suddenly the arranged hair

stood on end like bristles, and instead of being a cooing dove you

recognized in you the growl and claws of a catamount. The arousing and

declaring circumstance had come.

S. S. Prentiss was once delivering a political speech from the top of a cage

belonging to a menagerie. The audience stood before him, encircled with

the rest of the cages containing the wild beasts. At a certain point in his

speech Mr. Prentiss discovered an auger hole in the top of the cage on

which he stood. At the moment he was saying that “If the opposition

should do what they propose doing, it is enough to make all the beasts of

the field to howl in fury”—he suddenly ran his walking cane through the

hole and sharply prodded a lion. The great brute leaped to his feet and

roared, and it seemed to be the signal for a general outburst from the whole

menagerie, for in five seconds every animal was on his feet and the air

fairly trembled with the combined throat thunder.

I have recalled this scene more than once, and thought this is the way with

the dark nature of which we are speaking. It lies as quietly within as did

the slumbering tigers in their cages. When lo, the unexpected circumstance

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like the walking stick stirs up the resting or dozing sin, and the man to his

amazement finds he has a roaring menagerie of evil inside. Some of you had

better not congratulate yourselves too soon. The only reason you are

quiet, and have thus far gotten along so well, is that the walking stick

which is to reach you in the most sensitive place has not yet been thrust at

you. The devil knows where the auger hole is, and he is looking for the

walking stick. Look out! my boasting, well satisfied brother. In the

providence of God you will yet find out that you have a slumbering lion

within you. How I pity you the day the walking stick reaches him, and he

roars and shakes the human cage.

Some years ago one of the petty kings of New Zealand visited England. It

was said by one who wrote up the visit and described the barbarian chief

that he was of a very kind and gentle nature unless some one crossed and

provoked him; then he became beside himself. On one occasion he caught a

man who had worried him, in his hands, swung him high above his head,

shook him in the air and brought him down with a crash on the floor. How

many people you and I know who are like the New Zealand chief. Let

them have their way in all things and they are just lovely, but just provoke

or cross them and then come experiences of an earthquake or cyclone

order.

The text puts this beyond all question, “for all have sinned.” The

explanation of course of this general sinning is to be found in the universal

inheritance of a bad heart to begin with.

What is sin? The accepted definition is that it is the voluntary

transgression of a known Divine law. Suppose we take the ten

commandments that in a federal way cover every kind of wickedness. Who

has kept them inviolate? They forbid idolatry, profanity, irreverence,

Sabbath desecration, dishonor to parents, killing, stealing, adultery,

coveting and false witnessing. If any person before me has not broken one

of these laws I would be glad to have him stand up. Suppose we wait a

minute to see if such a person is here, one who has never broken one of the

Ten Commandments.

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I remember once hearing a preacher request any one in his audience who

had never stolen or taken anything that belonged to another to arise. One

gentleman arose, when the preacher in a significant tone asked him if he

had been a soldier in the late war, when suddenly the man sat down, while

a general smile went around.

An evangelist once asked all in his congregation who had never told a lie to

arise. Two individuals stood up when the preacher requested the audience

to kneel in prayer for the two biggest liars he had yet seen in his life.

All smiling aside, where is the person who has not broken the letter itself

of one of the Ten Commandments. In n word all have sinned.

But some will say I do not remember to have offended against the letter of

the law. Very good, then take the spirit of the law and see who escapes.

The Savior long ago showed the spiritual side of the Commandments, and

said that to be angry is as murder, and that to look upon a woman

improperly was adultery. Idolatry is the elevation of some creature into

God’s place, and coveting is theft unfledged. As we learn these facts from

Scripture who is able to lift up his head and say I have not sinned.

Nor is this all, for Christ says if we offend in one of these Commandments

we have broken all. Truly if a man is willing to sin against God in one

respect, he certainly will in another. Moreover the result is one of general

woe. Suppose for instance, as one has said, you were suspended over an

abyss by a chain of ten links, and one should be broken I Would you not

go down just as certainly and swiftly as if three or five or all the links had

been sundered?

Somehow there is a conviction abroad that if a man can willingly violate

one commandment of heaven, he will not require much urging to break

another. In illustration I remember years ago to have read of a gentleman

sitting in n hotel one Sabbath morning. Near him two other gentlemen were

playing cards. He endured the painful spectacle a while and then suddenly

called out to the hotel waiter to run quickly to his room and bring him

certain valuable articles he had left on his table. One of the card-players

had the curiosity to ask him why he made such a request. The gentleman

with great emphasis replied that when he saw persons around deliberately

breaking one of God’s laws in Sabbath desecration he did not know when

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it might please them to break another law, say for instance as to stealing,

and so he thought it wisest to secure his property.

Certainly men do not see themselves. They do not stop to think. Alas for

it, that every one who will speak the truth is compelled to say that in the

sorrowful past he has sinned.

I do not mean to say that we cannot be washed and sanctified and by the

indwelling grace and presence of Christ be kept from sinning. That, thank

God, is true also. We only mean to say that in the past, all, save Jesus

Christ, have at some time or in some way, sinned against God.

There can be no question of this, for the statement of the text is plain; all

have come short of the glory of God.

There is a great difference in regard to the possession of man’s glory.

Gladstone and Bismarck, Grant and Lee obtained it, while you and I have

failed. If some men came to our city, the streets would be crowded with

welcoming thousands, houses would be illuminated, rockets ascend and

cannon thunder. But many of us might come and go and the community

would be none the wiser.

Some have succeeded in obtaining the glory of men, but when it comes to

the glory of God all alike have failed.

What is the glory of God? Many have been the answers. Some say it is

eternal life. Others say heaven. Still others affirm that it is the perfect,

flawless character, such as is drawn in the law and requirements of the

Bible. A fourth answer is that it is the honor which God gives as a reward

on earth and in heaven, based on individual merit and faithfulness alone. A

fifth explanation is that it is the holiness of God Himself.

Evidently it is difficult to tell what it means. The heart knows better here

than the head. The soul, feels at this place what the lip cannot express.

But let the term glory of God stand for all we have mentioned, eternal life,

heaven, Divine honor, flawlessness of life, God’s resplendent holiness—

concerning this galaxy of shining blessings we are all bound to say, that

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standing in our own strength and wisdom, unhelped by Divine grace we all

come short of the glory of God. Any one of them is the glory of God, and

who of us without Christ could have measured up to or obtained them.

The expression “come short” is powerful. I see an arrow shot at a target,

but falling this side of the mark. It came short. I see a man endeavoring to

leap a chasm. He misses the other bank and goes crashing down into the

canyon. He came short. So has the human race in itself tried to reach

heaven, attain character, and be clothed with the honor and rewards of

God. It was a great leap they thought they made in their moral

philosophies and life sacrifices, but they came short. History said so, God

said so, and they felt it.

But one person says I did not fail as much as another did; and one age and

country did not sink as low as another. True, but all come short of God’s

glory, and so the catastrophe is wonderfully similar.

Let us see how this is the case. Here is a call in military ranks for men who

measure exactly six feet. Some applicants are only five feet six, others five

feet eight, still others five, ten and eleven, and some are within half an inch

of the standard. Yet all are rejected, and the man who is five feet eleven

inches and a half finds himself in the rejected company of those who fell

short six inches. They all came short.

Suppose some of us had to jump a chasm six feet wide in order to save our

lives. One leaps only four feet, another five, a third five feet six inches. All

go crashing down the precipice together. It took a six foot leap to make the

safe landing, and no one covered the distance.

So we say to the entire human race, fall into line. Kings and peasants,

princes and beggars, generals, statesmen, citizens, soldiers, preachers and

laymen all get into line. Now then let every one, whether he be clothed in

silk or rags, strike his breast with his hand and cry out, “We have all come

short of the glory of God.”

Are we all in the dust? Well, that is just where God wants us; and where

we must all get before Christ can save us.

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The text says there is no difference—”being justified freely.” Of course

this does not mean that every one in the world does secure pardon, but can

if he will.

It is so free that it is for all just as much for the tramp on the road as for

the king on his throne; just as truly for the poor man as for the millionaire.

It is for the young and the aged, the illiterate and the philosopher.

It comes just as swiftly to one as the other, and just as freely and

abundantly. It never stops to examine the house in which you live whether

it be a palace or a hovel. It asks no questions about the kind of clothes you

wear whether silk or jeans; nor on what alley, street or avenue you reside,

nor what may be the amount of your income. There is no difference, all are

justified freely who will accept pardon.

Is it not wonderful that men should doubt this blessed Bible truth. The

trouble is they make God such an one as themselves. Affected by material

circumstances they would make the Almighty partial, and a respecter of

persons. Listen to the Word, “ “God would have all men believe and come

to the knowledge of the truth;” “God is not willing that any should perish,

but that all should come to repentance.”

Now look at His gifts of air and sunshine. They are as much for one

person as another, and are symbolic of the like freedom and fullness of His

grace and salvation.

I have noticed that the telephone wires in our cities go to large and fine

looking houses; none to hovels. But the lines of Divine grace and love are

sent to any and all houses, and to the humblest as quickly as to the lordly

residence. I have noticed that certain lovely tints and colors are peculiar to

the mansions of the rich; but God has a crimson stain that came from

Calvary, which He places on the lowliest abode on the obscurest street;

and when He applies it to n palace it is the same scarlet color; He has

nothing better in heaven.

I started housekeeping in a very humble way. Rather than go in debt, our

first center table was a dry goods box, and our two arm chairs we made

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ourselves out of barrels, cushioned with straw and covered with red calico.

I live today in a three story house with pleasant and comfortable furniture

made at the factories. But the Lord came as quickly to bless my soul when

I lived in one room as He does now when I keep house in ten.

I have seen altars filled with all kinds of people seeking forgiveness of sin.

There were the blonde curls of childhood, the grizzled locks of middle life,

and the gray hairs of old age. The faded coat or dress was by the side of

rustling silk or shining broadcloth. The poor tradesman was next to the

scholar or professional man. I noticed at the same time that the silk and

broadcloth secured more ghostly counsel and attention from their fellow

creatures than did the obscure and less favored in face, person and purse.

But I also noticed that heaven was rigidly impartial. That God came as

quickly in response to prayer and faith to the unrefined as to the

accomplished, and to the poor as to the wealthy. In a word, there is no

difference; we can all be justified no matter who we are, what we have

done or left undone. The debt has been paid, the door of heaven is open

and the cry to the whole world is come, and take of the water of life freely.

The text says, “The redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” What is this

redemption? He who regards it as simply the pardon of sin has failed to

take in the meaning of the word. He who makes it to be escape from hell

and the gaining of heaven has not grasped the fullness of the salvation of

Christ.

The word redemption has in it the idea of n complete recovery. It means

repurchasing or ransoming, and overflows with the thought of rescue.

The illustrations of the meaning of the word are even more striking. A field

that for years has been lying out untouched by hoe or plow, covered with

weeds and brambles, and then afterwards fenced in and made to smile with

a beautiful and profitable harvest is a field redeemed.

A preacher was once approached by a boy carrying n cage filled with

birds. He desired to sell them. The preacher’s heart felt strangely moved in

behalf of the little captives and bought them all. After paying the money

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down in the lad’s hands, the new master of the birds opened the cage door

and let them all fly out. With wet eyes but warm heart he saw them flutter

away through the air, and he said as they flew off into the sky they were

all chirping and singing and they seemed to say, “Redeemed—Redeemed.”

A still more remarkable illustration of the word has been seen in

connection with certain occurrences in the days of Slavery. Now and then

a Slave owner being pressed by debt or some kind of obligation, would be

under the necessity of parting with one or more of his servants. In certain

towns and cities there was what was called a Slave-block, and the man or

woman to be sold was placed upon it and auctioneered off to the highest

bidder. It was a scene never to be forgotten when the husband and father

thus stood, and heard the bids made upon him. The circle of rough-looking

Slave buyers about the Block, felt the muscles of the Slave, asked his age

and regarded him as merely a piece of goods or chattels. The wife and

children of the man thus being sold, stood or crouched a few yards away

and witnessed the sale with voiceless lips, but streaming eyes. In a few

minutes he is to be “knocked down” to the highest bidder, and will be

carried away to end his days on some far distant plantation of cotton or

cane in Mississippi or Louisiana. They will never meet again on earth. It

all comes to him as stealing a hurried glance at his loved ones, he hears the

words of the auctioneer; whose pitiless they sounded; “One thousand

dollars is of offered” — “Twelve hundred dollars.” “How much more am I

offered?” “Are all bids in?” “Twelve hundred dollars.” “Going—going,

gone!” Yes, truly, it is—gone. And the man now amid the loud wails of his

family goes off with his new master, to return no more.

But suppose that just as some coarse, dark-featured man has bidden the

twelve hundred dollars, and as the trembling Slave takes in the cruel visage

before him and a horror of despair begins to fall upon him, that a

benevolent-faced gentleman in the crowd, not only wealthy but a

benefactor of his race, trying to do good at every opportunity, suddenly

bids twelve hundred and fifty, and still higher as his competitor raises the

amount. Suppose this kindly heart, who has done the like thing often

before, should bid beyond the reach of every other man, and for the sum of

eighteen hundred dollars has the Slave turned over to him. It is not to

retain him as a slave, however, but to set him at liberty from that hour. He

tells with shining face, the joy-intoxicated man “you are free. I have

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redeemed you.” Suppose in addition to this act, the wealthy gentleman

purchases the family of the man and then sets them all free together; now

then you have some idea of the deep, sweet meaning of the word

Redemption.

So were we on the Slave-block of sin. The world and the devil were

bidding for our souls. You know well what bondage to them means; what

separations, tears, labors and death. Right in the midst of this bidding came

one wearing a crown of thorns and saying, “I will bid for him.” To the

question what will you give, He answered: “I will give the gold of my

blood, and the silver of my tears. I give myself for him.” And thank God,

we were struck down to Christ. There was no one who could outbid Jesus.

There was no price in all the universe equal to what He paid down at

Calvary. And so we became the Lord’s property, and in becoming His

were set free; Free from sin, the world and the devil in a word Redeemed.

Paul says in Titus 2:4: “He gave Himself for us that he might redeem us

from all iniquity.” Here now we have it. To be redeemed from all iniquity

is to be made holy. Christ’s salvation was never intended to stop with

pardon, but to sweep on farther, and to go down deeper, giving us a pure

heart and settling us in a holy life.

The Bible shows us what “the redemption in Christ Jesus” is by a

reference to certain characters in its pages. I mention only one, and that

one Peter.

As a rough fisherman without God, he must have been a most unattractive

individual. When he was converted and in his impulsive way following

Christ there was a marvellous change. Still, however, he was fearful and

hotheaded. But after the baptism of the Holy Ghost, with his heart

purified and soul and tongue on fire boldly preaching, patiently suffering

and humbly yet triumphantly dying for the Savior, it is like looking on

another man, and in itself tells louder than words what is “the redemption

which is in Christ Jesus.”

It was a redemption from haste of speech, religious narrowness, dread of

man and fear of death. It was the power to face a frowning world, with a

joy unspeakable and full of glory, and to live daily as he wrote in one of

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his epistles, “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved what

manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.”

Look at the Demoniac filled with ten thousand devils tearing and cutting

himself and wandering with fearful cries up and down the banks of Lake

Galilee in order to see what the bondage of the devil is. Then to know

Christ’s redemption, see the same man with the unclean spirits all gone,

sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and afterwards

sent back to his home and community as an evangelist to tell what great

things the Lord had done for him.

Life is full of illustrations and commentaries upon the word Redemption.

A few months ago I saw a man who under the demon of intemperance had

been sent twenty-seven times to Inebriate Asylums. All had failed. Then

he came to Jesus, and Christ with His blessed releasing power, saved and

sanctified him, and the man is today one of the most useful Christian

workers in the land.

I have seen backsliders who had drifted far from God, and had been in

coldness, darkness and hardness for years, suddenly arrested, broken,

melted, reclaimed, refilled and refired, and from that time became the

gentlest, humblest, purest and most zealous among the servants of God.

This also is the redemption of Jesus.

Some of you know what this redemption has done for you. Justification

secured your pardon; regeneration made you a new creature in Christ

Jesus, but there was something left in your heart that gave you much

trouble. There u as a dark nature or principle within that brought you days

of defeat and gloom. You had love, but it was not perfect. You had peace,

but it did not abide. At last you were told that Christ had a work of grace

that would meet every spiritual need, and richly satisfy every longing of

the soul. You sought the blessing for hours or days. And it came. O, how

thankful you are that it came. Since that moment you know what heart

repose and life victory mean. You feel every instant that the blood

cleanseth, and a tender quiet joy bubbles like a pure spring up in the heart.

You feel kept by the power of God. In a word, you are justified freely,

sanctified wholly and preserved blameless. This is a part of what is meant

by the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

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Why do not the people come to Him and find out what He is, and has, and

can do for them. The Bible says there is “riches of grace” is Christ; yet

many of His people would never impress you that they were rich, but

rather poverty-stricken and bankrupt. Why should there be sadness and

defeat in our hearts and lives when He Whom we serve has all mercy, all

love and all power?

There is no end to the redemption that is in Him; and this redemption is

for any and all. There is no difference. All are welcome. The humblest sad

weakest person here can drink as deep of the fountain of salvation as did

Paul. You can live as near the Lord as did John. You can be the best of

earth and rise as high in heaven as the loftiest archangel! Who will accept

what God has for them? Who will help himself? May God grant that the

last one of you will arise and enter upon the privileges and boundless

possibilities of grace and blessedness provided by the Savior for every

child of man.

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CHAPTER 4

SONSHIP

“Beloved, now are we the Sons of God, and it doth not yet appear

what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall

be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is And every man that hath

this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.”

There are three great truths taught by this passage of Scripture. The first is

evident at a mere glance; the second is just as truly taught but not as

quickly seen; while the third is buried still more deeply, and yet is the

most important of the three. To the question of surprise why this should

be so, the reply is that the God of Grace and Nature is the same God, and

He who hides certain ores under the surface of the earth, and buries gold,

silver and gems farther down, acts consistently in the spiritual kingdom,

when He secretes precious truths under the meaning of the word, and still

more sacred mysteries still deeper.

I call attention to the three great lessons of the text: and first

This prominent thought of the text is suggestive of other truths which

illumine and glorify the first great fact. I present them as they arise in my

mind.

birth.

There is no way of obtaining entrance into the kingdom of God except by

birth. You cannot grow into it, nor reform into it, nor improve into it, but

you must be born into it. Just as there is but one way of getting into this

materiel world of ours, viz. by birth, so there is but one way of finding

entrance into the kingdom of grace. We must be born into it. A physical

birth for the physical world, a spiritual birth for the spiritual world. The

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Savior’s words are explicit here, “Ye must be born again.” “Except ye be

born of the Spirit, ye cannot see the kingdom of God.” Just as distinctly

John in his gospel affirms that this birth is “not of blood,” i. e., it is not an

inheritance. Our parents are powerless to transmit grace to us. “Nor of the

will of the flesh;” surely no one believes that it is in man’s power to

regenerate himself. “Nor of the will of man;” not only can no individual

bring this heavenly birth about by any mental or physical energy of his

own, but neither can any collection of individuals. No church although in

possession of the Ark and Oracles of God has power to make the moral

Ethiop white. Every one of the denominations might assemble together

and with all the pomp and show beheld in some ecclesiasticisms bid the

weeping sinner to be born again and there would be no result save one of

disappointment to him and mortification to themselves. It takes the power

of God to effect this marvellous work.

The Almanac date of our conversion is pleasant to recall and quote; but

some through various reasons are not able to state the exact hour. Still the

fact of the spiritual birth is not less true and important.

I have heard some speak lightly of this wonderful time and occurrence; and

such comparative disparagement I could never understand. To me the day

in which I was born of God has ever and will ever be a most precious and

sacred date. The day and place of our natural birth have a curious power to

stir our sensibilities, but it ought not to move us as much as the memory

of the hour when born of the spirit we wept, laughed or shouted and our

heart and lip cried out for the first time, “Abba Father,” and “My Lord

and my God.”

If a man should come to you saying that he was the son of an old-time

friend and acquaintance, you would at once look for certain corroboratory

signs, and there would always be such if he was the child of that friend.

There would be features in the face, accents of the voice, carriage of the

body, mannerisms, not to say peculiarities, that would bring at once the

friend of other years to mind. I never saw a child yet but would bear one

or more of these signs. With the brow and eye of the mother there would

be a motion of the hand, a toss of the head, an utterance of the lip that

would declare the father beyond a doubt.

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So it is impossible to become God’s child without the fact being evident.

The resemblance must and will be there. The new light in the eye, the

purity of speech, gentleness of manner, love in the act, and spirituality of

life all declare the family above to which the man belongs.

I remember once to have known two ministers of the gospel who lived in

the same town, but belonged to different denominations. One was a

blustering kind of man, loved publicity, sought prominent seats on the

platform and in the synagogue, and when coming down the street fairly

monopolized the pavement. Somehow there was nothing to remind one of

Jesus, and there were numbers of people who doubted that he was a child

of God. The other preacher was one of the humblest and gentlest of men.

On the street he gave way to everybody without appearing cringing. He

did not shrink from duty, but cared not for prominence for its mere sake.

His words were always kind and his life heavenly. To see him anywhere

was to think of Christ, and all who knew him felt he was a member of the

Divine family.

The spectacle of a divided household is always painful, and regarded as

unnatural. Some of us have beheld such sights and were made to deplore

the trouble itself and the unhappy consequences which flowed therefrom.

I have seen two brothers refusing to speak for years. I have seen two

sisters, the only surviving children of the family enter into a lifelong

separation and hatred of each other. But no matter how many such

instances we behold we never get accustomed to them, but continue to

deplore and condemn. The very unnaturalness of the thing forever

prevents it from being looked upon with approval. In the quarrels of little

children old nurses have been heard to say to them. “You will get along

better when oceans roll between you.” Just as vividly the speech of a

Confederate Colonel rings in my ears today, when in trying to reconcile

two estranged brothers, he said, “Nothing my brother could do would ever

make me refuse to speak to him.”

Here then is the standard adopted by the world for the family circles of

earth. It is one of mutual love. Shall there be a lower standard for the

heavenly family? In Antioch the fact of the love of Christians for one

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another proved who they were; “See how these Christians love one

another,” they used to say.

This love should prove the Divine relationship today, and does so. For we

may prate as we will about past experience and conscious acceptance with

God, but if we have feelings of bitterness and estrangement to God’s

children we are ourselves in the gall and bondage of sin. If any man says he

loves God and hateth his brother he is a liar, says John.

There had been nothing that has blocked the progress of Christianity more

than the strifes, dissensions, jealousies and warrings of the different

denominations and churches. Oftentimes the preacher and evangelist will

labor unavailingly for a revival for days and weeks, and at last find out to

their surprise that there has been division and enmity among God’s

people. Of course God would not come down upon such divided

congregation. In one of my revival services in a Southern city; I was made

to marvel at the absence of the Spirit in the congregation. On the eighth

day I asked if there could possibly be any estrangements among them. A

steward replied that the church at that point was like a loving family. Six

hours later not less than three grave church quarrels were brought to view

and it was developed that this same steward’s family was not on speaking

or visiting terms with five other families in the congregation. One

elderly lady remarked that while she felt no enmity to other church

members, yet there were several about whom she must candidly confess

that the preferred to have them walk on one side of the street while she

stayed on the other. Here was a revelation indeed. I could but think what if

Gabriel in heaven would say that while he felt no particular ill-will toward

the Archangel Michael, yet he preferred him to stay on one side of the

Throne while he remained on the other.

Let no man deceive you, brethren, for “he that saith he is in the light and

hateth his brother is in darkness,” and “if a man say I love God and hateth

his brother, he is a liar;” while Jesus says, “by this shall all men know that

ye are my disciples if ye have love to one another.”

interest.

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Here the son is at once recognized. Strangers and outsiders are not

concerned about the state of a man’s property, and can see wrong done to

it, and lose no sleep. But the son is not and cannot be so indifferent even

though he has already received his own inheritance. Suppose for instance a

man’s store should be rifled by a rabble. Many would regret the

occurrence, but would say it is none of my business and pass by. But

suddenly a gentleman appears on the scene who gives an astonished look,

utters an indignant outcry hurls himself upon the marauders and pilferers,

and sweeps the store of their presence. That man is the son of the owner

of the store.

God has a cause on earth. His interests in many respects and in many

places are totally neglected. Numbers of people shake the head and say

what a pity certain things are not done in the church. What a pity that

salaries are not paid, the church painted, and a parsonage built. What a

pity that certain Missions and Houses of Refuge could not be kept up.

And so they relieve themselves in sighing, and lose no sleep or money over

the needs of Zion. These people are not God’s children. If they were, they

would act differently. Their hearts would melt, and eyes fill at the sight of

the languishing work of the Lord. Their hearts would burn to help, their

feet would fly, and their money be gladly given to meet the need and

remove the distress.

Two scenes widely different in character, but springing from the same

spirit often come up to me when I think on this point of devotion to God.

One was connected with a church in a small Southern town. The people

were backslidden, and the fact could be seen in the forlorn appearance of

their place of worship. Broken window panes, missing shutters and crazy

doorsteps told the story from the outside. Inside the building, the ragged

aisle carpet and discolored pews and walls were mutely eloquent. Just

back of the pulpit hung a piece of damask fifteen feet long and eight feet

wide that was once handsome and ornamental, but it had faded, become

dusty, and was now fallen away from some of its fastenings. There moved

to this town a young married woman who, in her first attendance at church

took in the situation. There were other ladies who seemed not to care for

the spectacle I have described, but her eyes filled with tears. Next day in

passing the church I heard the sound of a tack hammer, and quietly

entering t he door saw the young woman standing on a stepladder at work

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on the damask curtain, arranging its wide borders and causing it to fall once

more in graceful folds. She was alone, and her hands had been busy all over

the house to its decided improvement. It was the form of one of God’s

daughters that I saw in the subdued light of the closed building. She was in

her Father’s House. She did not care to be seen or known, but loved her

Father and was glad to minister to Him and to His Sanctuary. I looked at

the scene with melted heart and misty eyes for a while and went away, but

the picture has often returned to memory. The young woman is now in her

grave, but He who said that a cup of cold water given for Him would not

lose its reward, has long ago blessed her for her devotion to her Father’s

house.

The second scene took place in New Orleans in a church that had been

heavily burdened with debt for years. Most of the members seemed to be

contented to bear the reproach heaped upon them for this financial

obligation. There was one man among them who continually grieved over

it, and finally requested a dozen of the abler members to meet him in the

pastor’s study. There he got them upon their knees and talked to God

about what He was to them, and what He had done for them. Tears soon

began to flow; when suddenly rising this devoted son of the Father said

that he would give a thousand dollars to lift the debt, when lo! in ten

minutes the whole amount had been met. All of this was brought about by

one who was such a true child of God as to be devoted to His interests.

The general rule and practice seems to be to send our children off to

school. In distant cities and colleges they lay the foundation and acquire

the knowledge that is to fit them for the duties and conflicts of life.

So God has put us to College. We are far from the Father’s house and from

the final home of the soul, on the planet earth going through the University

of Life. We are being educated and trained for the heavenly state, and fitted

for companionships, angelic and divine. A wonderful Faculty is over us

whose names are Sorrow, Poverty, Sickness, Disappointment, Prosperity,

Adversity—under whose teaching we are made to forget much and learn

much. Over them all is the great Teacher Himself, who employs them to

impress the truths He would have us learn. What strange text books are

placed in our hands, and how we make their pages wet with our tears

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before we master the volume! A new arithmetic is studied in which we

find that to lose one’s life for God is to gain it. A new Logic in which love

and kindness are the major and minor premises, and happiness the

conclusion. A new Astronomy in which the Star of Bethlehem wheels into

view and Heaven with all its glories becomes visible.

What lessons we learn; and how hollow some things are found to be that

we once thought solid. How every pleasure out of Christ soon cloys upon

the spiritual palate, and comes with ever diminishing power to the soul.

How the cackling mirth of thoughtless youth gradually disappears, and a

sweet seriousness of spirit and manner takes its place. How sin is hated

and shunned, and purity and piety sought after and prized instead.

The great consolation when absent from our earthly home is the reception

of letters. In the time of my college life how I loved the days that brought

a letter from home. Connection was thus kept up and the distance was in

some way bridged. So should we be in communion with our Father in

heaven if we are indeed His children. I wonder how many of you receive

communications from Him, and when you heard last. When a week

elapsed without my hearing from home when I was at school I grew

alarmed; and so should the Christian who has days and weeks to pass

without spiritual communion and Divine messages to the soul. There is an

Experience where there is a delivery a number of times through the day,

and heavenly telegrams continually flash their way into the soul. Some of

us can say this moment I hear His voice, and there have been fifty

dispatches received since the hour of worship began.

I remember I gave myself no worry about my college expenses. They were

considerable it is true, but certain loved ones had promised all necessary

funds for support should come, and they did.

If we are God’s children He will take care of us. The remittance of relief

will arrive, the supply will come, for He has promised it. Some of us could

give thrilling incidents of empty flour barrels, and depleted pocket books,

and the help that came at the hour of greatest need from unexpected

quarters. It is our duty to study and work on in this University of Life,

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and God will provide for and sustain us. When I entered the ministry a

preacher slipped a folded piece of letter paper in my hand, saying, “I have

no money to give you, but here is something far better than I can do; read

it when you get to yourself.” An hour later on the guards of the steamboat

I read in the fading light of the sunset the words, “Trust in the Lord and do

good; so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed.” It was

God’s promissory note. I have never parted with it. It has been good these

twenty years, and heaven has honored it every time I presented it.

Just as we send for our children at the end of the school or college session,

and here they come trooping home, so will our Father send for us and so

will we return.

It is a blessed thought that at any hour the messenger and message may

reach us to “come home.” Some of us as little children have been playing in

the yard under the trees until the shadowy of evening began to fall, when a

servant drew near and said, “Your father says come home.” At once we

laid down our playthings of flowers, bits of stick and broken glass, and

followed the servant into the house. We had such pleasant homes we were

not heartbroken to do this.

God’s messenger sooner or later will find us at our work or play. His name

is Death. As his touch falls upon us and we look upon his dark form we

will hear the message, “Your Father says come home.”

Some of us will not be sorry to go. How gladly we will lay down the work

tools or playthings of this world and follow the messenger upward toward

the heavenly mansion that is all ashine and waiting for us.

It is a sweet thought to feel as the world sweeps on that it is carrying us to

the home of the soul, that it is speeding through the air in swift flight for

the Everlasting City. There are signs along the years that declare

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unmistakably the approaching end of the journey. We mark them with

interest as one would notice the familiar landmarks in an earthly trip. I

heard a gentleman once describe his return home after an absence of years;

that as he drew nearer and nearer, the well-known curve of the river, the

line of hills, the forest, the orchard, the turn in the road, the rustic stile, the

clump of trees near the house, and other familiar objects, all uprose one

after another to the view, filling him with an increasing breathless interest,

until finally as the old home itself stood out on the tree-studded and

sloping lawn before him, a torrent of unrestrainable tears gushed down his

face.

There are numerous signs of the approaching end of life’s journey, in grey

hair, failing sight and hearing, enfeebled powers, weariness of body and

that loneliness which comes from having lost many friends and loved ones

by the way. They all declare the fact that you are nearly home.

It is sweet to feel there will be some at the Gate of Heaven awaiting us. I

have seen persons standing at the door, or in the front of the house to

welcome a long absent traveler. It was an experience never to be forgotten

to look up and see that loving group at the door. Father, mother, brother,

sister, wife and children were all there. The joy of that moment paid for all

the pain and suffering of the long absence of months or years.

That there will be a company awaiting us at the door of heaven I doubt

not. All of you well know who will be there to greet you. The mother

whose death left you to stand alone in the world; the little boy in whose

grave the sun seemed to go down; both will be there to welcome you; their

arms will twine about you and the sound of their well remembered voices

will take away the pain of many lonely years.

The president of a church college was dying in Kentucky. He had been for

long years a widower. Just as he was taking his last breath he looked up

and with a flash of joy in his eyes he cried out, “My wife,” and fell back

dead. The scene made a deep impression upon the Hon. L. Q. C. Lamar, of

Mississippi, and he asked Bishop Wightman what he thought of it. The

Bishop replied, “God sent His angels to escort his soul to heaven, and

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allowed the wife of the dying man to come along with them. As his soul

was leaving the body he looked up and saw her; that is all about it.”

On my return from the Holy Land after an absence of four months, I

witnessed a scene at the landing of the ship that I never will be able to

forget. The whole deck was filled with passengers whose eyes were fixed

on the pier where we were to land, and which was thronged with a great

concourse of people who had come down expecting friends and relatives

from across the sea. There was not a sound as the two throngs looked at

each other, and with eager eyes tried to separate loved ones from the

crowd. While fifty yards still intervened, I heard an elderly man give a

choking sob and say, “Yonder is my daughter.” A lady stood her little boy

on an elevated place and pointing with her hand, while her face glowed and

tears dripped, said, “There is your father.” Others equally oblivious and

careless of being heard would cry out in the same way, wave the hand or

handkerchief, and utter with husky voice the name of some beloved one.

Others sank back upon seats after the mutual recognition, covering their

faces with their hands; still others laughed or wept hysterically, and some

few men hallooed across the distance to each other. I heard one cry out

from the ship, “I thought we would never see you nor the land again.”

“Yes,” came back a glad shout, “we knew of the storm and prayed God to

bring you through.”

Finally the steamer touched the wharf, the gang way was run out and there

followed a scene made up of handshakes, embraces, smiles, tears and

joyous and tender salutations that could not be described. There was no

one expecting me, so all I had to do was to view the pathetic scene. My

own cheeks were wet and heart fairly ached with the emotions excited

within me by the occurrences of the hour. I thought as I leaned against the

bulwarks of the vessel, that so shall be the meeting and greetings of

heaven. Memorable will be the hour in eternity when the Old Ship of Zion

draws near with us to rejoin the bands of relatives and friends who have

preceded us. They, I doubt not, will be looking out for us, and you know

we will be looking for them. What a meeting it will be! what rapturous

shouts and praises! what embraces of lifelong parted friends and loved

ones.

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Thank God all will have some one looking out for us. And they who have

lingered long on the shore of life and can say in view of many burials, “My

company has gone before”—will have a goodly throng to greet them as

they arrive.

How we love to think of those that have gone ahead; the good and true

who fell early in life, and the old friends of your father and mother whom

you met and was taught to venerate around the family hearthstone And

there is the sister who passed away in girlhood, and the brother who went

down in battle. Then the father fell asleep, and after a while the mother

went after him. Then the young wife faded away, and the children went up

one by one, and left you lonely in he midst of empty rooms and vacant

chairs. Thank God they will all be there to meet you.

I never saw a father yet but wanted all his children home at stated times.

They may have married and been scattered everywhere, but the desire of

the father is known, the letters of reminder are sent, and here on

Thanksgiving Day or in the Christmas Holidays they all come. What a

bustle is in the house, what twinkling lights from the windows, what

roaring fires up the chimney, what running about of the servants. The

lawyer son is there from a distant city. The physician son has fled from

his patients in still another city and come. A third son is present with a

week’s furlough from the army, and a still younger son has run down from

college. Then there are daughters married and unmarried, and prattling

grandchildren. What a bright, loving, joyous scene it is! And when all are

sitting at the long dining table, and the silvery locked father at the head and

the bespectacled, smiling mother at the foot glance down the double line of

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faces, elderly and youthful, grave and gay, all of them their own, and all

under the old family roof tree once more; it is a picture so full of gladness,

thankfulness, love and content, that no pencil pen, or artist brush could

ever do it justice.

There is to be a great family gathering one of these days in the skies.

Christ repeatedly spoke of it. In one place it is called the Marriage Supper

of the Lamb. God’s children will come up from every country and age and

sit down together. They will drink the wine of the kingdom new at that

time. What an assemblage it will be of the good, true and pure. Patriarchs,

prophets, apostles, martyrs, kings, poets, priests, preachers, singers, in a

word all of God’s servants and witnesses who have lived, achieved,

suffered and died for him will be there. The hymn says:

No one is able to describe this scene. We have beheld the presence of one

good and great man enliven a whole table or company; but think of a feast

where all the spiritually great and good of this world are present. Where

not only Abraham, David, Elijah and Paul are seen, but Knox and Calvin,

Wesley and Whitefield, Payson and Summerfield, Cookman and Marvin.

Some of us doubtless would do nothing but look at these moral giants of

the past, but for one face which shines over all, and that is the chief and

crowning glory of the hour. No one need ask whose it is; all know the One

who wore the crown of thorns for us, and who died to bring us to heaven.

God grant we all may be there. There is nothing like it on earth, and

nothing can surpass it in eternity. The poor take rank, the humble are

exulted, the last are first, the “Dying Thief “ commands a great audience,

and Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Bethany who broke the alabaster box,

have as many eyes upon them as one of the prophets of old or the sweet

Singer of Israel himself. All these are sons and daughters of God, all feel

welcome, and are at home, and all have come to stay.

The second leading thought of the text is:

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Read the text, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” Sons now, but a

glory and exaltation is to come that at the present has not been revealed.

Wonderful as is the dignity and blessedness of being Sons of God, yet

says the Book it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Is not this enough

to stagger the mind, and fill the heart with adoring love and wonder?

Daniel referring to our heavenly state says we shall shine as the sun.” Paul

says our bodies will be “glorious,” and the writer of Revelation, on

beholding one thus glorified, fell at his feet to worship him, but the shining

one said, “See thou do it not for I am one of thy fellow servants.” A fellow

servant, and yet he looked divine! The nearest description that John gives

of this celestial state and appearance is in the text I am speaking from—

”We shall be like Him.”

By regeneration and sanctification we are made like Him in nature and

character on earth; but the likeness here spoken of is something external

and corporeal as well. This is certainly very wonderful, for we know that

the vision Paul had of Him in glory, and the glorious appearance granted to

John on Patmos could not be described by the first, and caused the second

to fall prostrate. So when the text says, “We shall be like Him,” the soul is

filled with amazement and thrilling anticipations of its own coming glory.

“We shall see Him as He is.” Here is the veritable Christ, only transfigured

with the glory He had with the Father before the world was. And we shall

be like Him! The redeemed race will look like Gods. Truly the soul should

be lost here in wonder, love and praise.

The third thought of the text is:

The text is clear about it, “And every one that hath this hope in him

purifieth himself even as He is pure.”

“Every one,” that is every one who is a son of God; St. John was writing

about God’s children.

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“This hope.” What hope is he talking about? The hope of being like Christ

in heaven, where we shall see Him as He is, and shall be like Him. The fact

of this great unknown exaltation and dignity of the skies awaiting the child

of God should stir in him a mighty aspiration or hope for it. It would be

surprising if it did not; and yet there are some who are not thus moved.

Listen to His words

“Every one that hath this hope in him.” The Apostle does not say that

every Christian or child of God has this hope, but “Every one that hath

this hope in him.” Some have it not. They are satisfied with a plodding

religion, and the prospect of a bare entrance into heaven. Many have told

me that I will be satisfied just to get inside the gate. No burning desire here

to rise up high in the favor of God and courts of glory. It is simply the

safety of heaven they want and not the likeness to the Son of God as He is

to be seen.

There are others, however, who want to stand high in spiritual things; who

desire not only to be like Christ as He was on earth, but like Him as He is

to be revealed in heaven. This, of course, will produce a certain moral

effect on the man. He is not content with simply being justified, and

remaining a son of God; “He purifieth himself.” So then impurity is left in

the child of God. Here is another death blow to Zinzendorfianism.

But an objector says the man here purifieth himself, and hence this is no

Divine work. My reply is that this does not alter the fact of impurity

remaining in the regenerated man. And again, the man’s purifying himself

antedates and is always connected with God’s cleansing of the soul. God

never does His part until the man does his. A man craving the Divine

inward purification, must prove it by a human outward purification. Paul

says to regenerated Corinthians, “Cleanse yourselves from all filthiness of

the flesh and spirit,” and this was to be done in order that they might

“perfect holiness in the fear of God.” In the Bible we are exhorted to

“sanctify ourselves”; but in the same Book we are told that “the God of

peace will sanctify us wholly.” There is a human and a Divine

sanctification. This is God’s plan, and He never deviates from it. So when

a son of God has “this hope” of a great coming glory and dignity in

heaven, he purifies himself. And when he does that God comes down

upon him in sanctifying fire.

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The character and measure of this purity is mentioned in the text.

This one expression shows what has happened. This is no human work.

No man can work himself into a spiritual cleanness even with, and like to

that of Christ. The words, “As He is pure,” show conclusively that at the

end of man’s personal cleansing, the Savior stepped in and purified him

with the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire.

O that God’s people everywhere would begin to pant and cry out for this

Divine cleansing. O to be pure even as He is pure. How can we be content

to live without such a blessing when we are told that it is for us.

The disciples as children of God were so anxious for this purifying that

they left homes, family, occupation and everything for ten days, while

shut up in an upper room, they waited for the descending fire. It finally

came, and afterwards Peter writing about it said their hearts were “purified

by faith.”

Caughey wanted it so badly that day after day saw him praying on his

face in lonely fields beyond Baltimore. It came, and as it swept with

cleansing power through his already regenerated soul, he leaped to his feet

and told God he could now go to England with the gospel message. He did,

and thousands found Christ as a consequence.

John S. Inskip so panted after it that his every breath became a prayer.

For hours he would be on his face begging for the blessing. One Sunday

morning while standing in his pulpit, and while uttering the words, “O

Lord, I am wholly and forever thine,” the fire fell, his heart was purified

and he at once entered upon a work and ministry apostolic in its spirit and

worldwide in its result.

Cornelius wanted it so much that he sent his servant thirty or forty miles

after Peter to tell him about it. A preacher friend of mine traveled seven

hundred miles to obtain instructions how to find this pearl of great price.

When I heard of it, I was the first of a large congregation to bow at the

altar and sought the blessing unweariedly, pertinaciously and inconsolably

until it came.

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I thank God it is for every child of God; and when we desire it above all

other things it will come. I marvel how any Christian can hear of such a

grace and not crave its possession.

O that scores who hear me would rush to the altar now, and be of one

mind, of one accord and in one place, begin to besiege heaven for the

Baptism of the Holy Ghost which purifies the heart and empowers for

service. God grant that you will never cease your importunities and cries

until heaven answers, and the same blessing that filled the disciples may

fill you, set you of fire, and send you flying everywhere with the tidings,

not only of pardon, but of purity, and not only of free, but of full

salvation.

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CHAPTER 5

CHRIST LOST AND FOUND

“And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child

Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew

not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company,

went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk

and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back

again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after

There are many wonderful truths and precious lessons of grace under the

surface meaning of the Word of God. I do not say with some that there is a

natural, spiritual and celestial meaning to every verse; but I do say there

are many blessed facts in the Word of God that will never be seen by the

hasty reader. It pays to tarry over Bible paragraphs. Blessed is the man

that reads meditatively and prayerfully. The text is an illustration of these

hidden lessons of grace. I present you what I have drawn from it. And first

The text says “the child Jesus tarried behind.”

There are many mysterious things about the Divine Being. One of them is

the very fact hinted at in the passage, viz., the Lord’s passing by or out of

the life at certain times. Again and again it seems to the regenerated soul as

if He was about to leave it finally. It has occurred so frequently as an

experience, and comes up so strikingly in certain cases in the Scripture that

it is enough to arouse thought and diligent search for the reason.

We see it in the case of Abraham when sitting before his tent he beheld

three celestial beings passing by, one of whom was the Lord. And it is true

that they were going by and would not have turned aside had not Abraham

ran after them and begged them to stop. In the instance of Jacob we find

that just before he received the great blessing at Peniel and while wrestling

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with the stranger, the Lord said, “Let me go.” If Jacob had loosed his hold

He would have gone. With the Syrophenician woman we see the same

treatment. Christ turned to her and said He was not sent but to the lost

sheep of the house of Israel. Suppose her faith had failed here, and she had

accepted that movement away from her as final; then would the world

have been denied one of the most heart-thrilling instances of victorious

faith and prayer that is on record. At Emmaus the identical course is

repeated, when Christ who had been walking by the side of the two

disciples made as if He would have gone on and by. And He would have

done so if they had not pressed him to stay.

And here is the same thing in principle occurring in Jerusalem, where it is

said the child Jesus tarried behind, allowing those who had been with Him

to go on without him. Who has not felt a similar experience in the spiritual

life? Christ seems to go by the tent still. He has a way of withdrawing

right in the midst of prayer, and of passing by when you thought He

would remain. Such an inexplicable feeling as if he was going to leave you

has come over you at times. What does it all mean? It is not that Christ

has a fluctuating love, nor is fitful in His treatment of us. He is the same

yesterday, today and forever, and could not be capricious. What He does

is in highest wisdom and in obedience to laws that most Christians do not

take time to study and understand.

It must be remembered that there is a jealousy in love. God announces

himself as a jealous God. He is worthy of being followed and sought after.

Again there is the fact of free moral agency which can never be compelled,

but has to be won over by a different treatment altogether. Again there is

the fact of spiritual effort being required to develop the soul. The mother

moves off from the child to make it walk to her. The Lord withdraws and

is silent to make us pursue him and call after him. The victories that

follow, the fresh discoveries made of God in these ardent pursuits after

His vanishing presence enlarge and bless the soul beyond language to

describe. Still again there are grades of salvation on earth and of reward in

heaven. It is evident at a glance that under the same gospel and

surroundings of all kinds that some Christians drag out a poor existence

while others develop into moral stalwarts and become kings and priests

unto God. The explanation is that the instant that God in harmony with

the law s hinted at withdraws from the heart or life, the first class sit down

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at once in gloom or despair and let Him go; while the other class rise up at

once and follow the retreating Lord, and with importunate prayer and

patient waiting constrain him to return and remain. Like Abram they run

after the angels. Like Jacob they say I will never let you go. Like the

disciples at Emmaus they urge the retiring Christ to stay, and like the

Syrophenician woman they with tears say, True, Lord, I am not worthy of

the bread, but give me the crumbs. This was why Fletcher’s face shone so.

This was why Payson and Brainard can never be forgotten in the religious

world. They were men who had a way of wrestling with God and would

take no denial. They had a way of looking and calling into the silent

heavens until the answer and the King himself would come. In a word they

ran after the angels, and if Jesus tarried they would at once seek and find

Him.

He was lost here according to this Scripture. And he was lost by those

who loved him. And lost in Jerusalem and in the Temple! Each successive

statement I make increases the wonder. And yet why be astonished when

the same thing is happening today. Christ is still lost by his friends, and in

Jerusalem and in the Temple.

When the question is put, how was it done; the answers are various, but

the solemn fact of a Savior parted from cannot be denied by certain heavy

hearts. The language of the soldier to Ahab is in substance what they say

in explanation: “As thy servant was busy here and there, lo! he was gone.”

Many say, I cannot tell how it happened, but one day I woke up to the

fact that the Savior was no longer with me.

Some lose Him in the bustle of life.

Joseph and Mary were so busy buying, and selling and getting ready for

travel that their eyes got off Jesus and they drifted apart. Many have done

just the same since. They never intended the thing to happen, but they

became so absorbed that it did. In some of these cases there was no

flagrant sin, but strange to say while attending to a business or occupation

that was legitimate and proper they gradually let go of Christ. They were

busy buying and selling, taking care of the children, attending to the

husband and running around generally, when lo the loss was discovered.

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There were hours of laughing and talking, days were consumed in

entertaining company, contact with many people distracted and diverted

the mind so that one night in going to bed there was no Christ in the heart.

They were fairly jostled out of the divine companionship by the

multitude; and as a good man once said: “I was bustled out of my

spirituality.”

Again some people lose Christ in the church.

It is a fearful thought to think that Jesus is parted with in the service of

God. But just as Joseph and Mary got separated from him in Jerusalem, it

has often been and still is the case. It was what happened to Eli’s sons

who became corrupt in the priesthood. It was what took place with Judas

who retrograded from an apostle to a thief, betrayer and self-murderer. It

is what is happening in a number of pulpits today. Preachers are losing

Christ; the dark sad face, hard tone, and unctionless sermon are

unmistakable. It is what is taking place in Boards of Stewards, Ladies’ Aid

and Missionary Societies, and the pew as well. Numbers of souls are

losing Jesus in Jerusalem and in the Temple.

In a great revival God gave me, among many persons at the altar was a

preacher from a distant city. The people thought he was seeking

sanctification, but he was groaning after a departed Christ and lost

salvation. He took me into his confidence and I never have nor will reveal

his name.

At another meeting the superintendent of the Sunday-school was on his

face before the altar. I never saw a man weep so in my life; he shook with

great sobs. I bent over him thinking that he wanted sanctification, when he

groaned under his breath to me that he had lost Christ. Here was a

backslider in charge of a Sunday-school of eight hundred children.

In the same meeting I was talking with a steward at the altar. The man’s

tears wet the rail on which he leaned. He groaned and sobbed so that it was

some time before I could understand him. Being a prominent member of

the church I thought he was at the altar consecrating himself with a view to

receiving the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, when between his groans he told

me this. He said, “My wife has been at your meetings and is deeply

moved. Last night she could not sleep, and woke me up at twelve o’clock

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crying out, ‘Oh Will, I have lost Christ; tell me how to find him. ‘ and

“Oh, Doctor,” groaned the man, “I was speechless. She thought I had

Christ, but I, too, have lost him.”

Suppose every man in the church who passes the collection basket, and

every usher who seats the audience, and every singer in the choir, and

every prominent man or woman in the pew were compelled to stand up

and publicly confess their spiritual condition today, what a shock would

be occasioned on earth, and what an uproar of merriment would be heard

in hell. You little know how many Christians have lost Jesus in Jerusalem,

and more still in the Temple.

The first answer suggested by the circumstances in the passage before us

is that it is done through carelessness. What but heedlessness could have

allowed Joseph and Mary to be separated from the Savior. And the same

thing today is the explanation when such a trouble befalls the soul. The

Scripture expressly urges to watchfulness. It is while the virgins slumbered

the midnight cry was raised; it was while the man slept that his enemy

sowed tares in his field. And what I say unto one I say unto all, “Watch.”

But how does the thing itself happen? What are the steps of this

departure?

Christ is lost gradually. God loves us too much to leave us at once. Just as

the light of day dies out of the west, so the divine light leaves the soul.

There have been tender, gentle warnings enough, but the man absorbed in

other things has not regarded them. There were looks and calls with each

retiring step of heaven, but they were not noticed or obeyed. The angle of

divergence was made in some neglected duty or some persisted-in

questionable thing. It was so small a matter that as a moral angle it would

have been called very acute indeed, but it was a divergence for all that from

the straight Christ-like life, and meant that in time the man and his Savior

were certain to be parted. It would be a long period before ships thus

sailing would disappear from each other, but that day would come at last,

and sweeping the wide sea with a glass the companion vessel could not be

found; she had dipped finally beneath the horizon. Thus gradually the soul

loses Christ. The instant we cease moving on the parallel o f a perfectly

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consecrated life, the fact of spiritual distance and the additional fact of an

ever widening distance between us and Him, and the final disappearance of

Christ out of the heart and life become as veritable a reality and as patent

to other eyes as the spectacle of the parted ships on this ocean.

It seems that not by one great evil act are men parted from the Lord, but it

is by a number of little acts, none of which are very grave and alarming.

Just as a person does not get off of a high tower by jumping down from

the top, but descends by hundreds of steps to the ground; so the Christian

rarely ever brings himself down and away from the presence of Christ by

one gross sin; but it is by a long line of little things said and done which

were unspiritual, objectionable and reprehensible in an increasing degree

that the calamity of a lost Christ takes place. One of the alarm signals hung

out in the soul is a protracted spiritual coldness. Instead of going at once

into a faithful self-examination and prayerful waiting upon God for help,

this signal is made to mean nothing by the statement that the Christian life

is a faith life and not one of feeling. It is true the life is one of faith, but it

is also one of feeling. The Bible says, “The joy of the Lord is your

strength,” and Christ said, “These things have I spoken unto you that my

joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.” In the Book of

Revelation the fault that the Savior found with a certain church was that it

had lost its first love, and in another verse he said he would spew a

lukewarm church out of his mouth. A protracted spiritual coldness means

that Christ is leaving, and we should at once fly to Him and wait on Him

until the clear assurance of His presence is restored.

Another way that Christ is lost by the Christian is by getting the eye off

Christ and resting it on church work. This is what happened to the Jews.

With all their boasted love of the Lord they let the Temple and Temple

work come in between them and the Holy One. Devoted to the Temple,

they killed the Lord of the Temple. How busy they were when Jesus

stood in their midst silently contemplating them! There was no end to

religious ceremonies, the victims were being slain by thousands, the smoke

of incense was rising, the priests and Levites were regular in their duties,

the Scribes and Pharisees were fasting twice a week and saying long

prayers; and yet in the midst of it all Jesus saw spiritual death, and said

that the outside was as fair as a glistening marble sepulcher, but inside was

corruption and dead men’s bones.

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The thought is fearful that we can get the eye off of Christ while

abounding in His work. That we can lose Him at the altars of Jerusalem

and in the Temple. That loaded down with church work, writing business

letters, attending Board and committee meetings, keeping the church books

and passing around the collection basket, we can become so absorbed is

these things as to utterly lose Christ.

The most immovable people spiritually I have ever known have been men

and women who belonged to a dozen different church Boards and

Societies. They had got their eyes off the Savior and on their work and

become spiritually petrified. This was what had happened to the steward

and his wife of whom I spoke. He was the president of the board of

Stewards, and his wife was the President of the Ladies Aid Society and

prominent in other church work, and yet both had lost Christ. While

running around in the name of Jesus they lost Him, and they lost Him in

the Temple.

This was what had occurred to the preacher I told you about. He said to

me with a countenance full of pain, “I cannot tell you how it happened;

but I was preaching, visiting and attending to all my work when suddenly I

woke up to the fact that I had lost the Savior.” The explanation was that

the eyes insensibly were taken from Jesus and placed on his work.

In a certain large religious denomination there was a preacher greatly gifted

in intellect and administrative power. He was chosen at once to preside

over church assemblies, and he was speedily thrust to the front as a leader

in all church business of great moment. He soon became absorbed in the

multifarious duties of his position. He began to think he could not be

spared from the world and church, when in the midst of it all he was laid

upon his deathbed. A preacher in speaking to him about his spiritual

condition was first surprised and then alarmed at his evasive replies.

Becoming still more concerned as he saw the state of the dying man, he

took a second preacher into his confidence and together they visited and

prayed with him. To their amazement they found that the man before

them while busied in the Temple had lost Christ. “While thy servant was

busy here and there, lo he was gone.” Day after day these two servants of

God conversed, prayed and labored with this man who had become so

great in church affairs and so little in grace divine. After a week’s faithful

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work with him the man said a little while before death that he was

reconciled to go. He was saved but saved as by fire.

I believe if we knew how many men and women prominent in the church,

how many ushers who are smilingly seating the congregation every

Sabbath, how many Sunday-school teachers and members of the choir and

preachers in the pulpit have lost Christ out of their hearts, the world

would be horrified. We do not mean that they are living immoral lives, but

they have been more loyal to church work than to Jesus, and the jealous

God is grieved and gone. The dark and sad countenances we often see in

the pew, choir and pulpit confirm what I say.

It is never to be forgotten that it is easier to attend windy Board and

Society meetings in the name of the Lord than to spend the same hour

alone on the knees with Christ. There is much pastoral visiting called the

work of the Lord that amounts to nothing. It is easier to pay a social visit

than to wait with groanings on the Lord. The jealous God sees how much

work undertaken in His name deserves not the name and is simply a sop

thrown out to ease conscience.

It is happening today as much as in the times of the Scribes and Pharisees

that the Temple is put in the place of the Lord; the House and its services

are exalted and the Lord of the House is set aside. Today some of the most

active church workers have the most superficial experience; and some have

none, having lost it all by placing the work above Christ, and the Temple

above the Lord of the Temple.

The first mistake appears in the sentence “they went a day’s journey”

without Him. They were separated from Him, did not see Him, and yet

pushed on a whole day’s journey. It is what many are doing today. They

lose Christ and go on their way. Here is the first mistake, and it not

infrequently ends fatally. The thing to do when we miss the Savior is to

stop everything until we find Him. Let no one think it a loss of time, for

when He is in the heart you can speak, write, work and live a thousand

times more effectively.

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A second mistake comes out in the words, “They supposed He was in the

company.” What if He was, He was not with them. A man to be happy

must have Christ in his heart as a conscious, personal possession. It is and

should be a poor comfort to one to feel that Christ is in the congregation or

household and not in himself. There is neither joy nor salvation in this

fact. Some husbands shelter themselves with the thought that their wives

are religious, but a child could tell them that this alone will never save

them. Some children seek a strange consolation in lives of sin with the

reflection that their fathers and mothers are prominent in the church and

preeminent for piety. But this will never save them, and if they do not

repent and possess Christ themselves they are as certainly damned as the

ungodly sons of the godly Eli were overthrown by the Divine judgments

and lost forever.

A third mistake is seen in the sentence, “they sought Him among their

kinsfolk.”

This is what Joseph and Mary did, and the result was that they did not

find Him. Doubtless they were much shocked. And I doubt not if you did

the same thing you would also be shocked. My brother, suppose you try

it, and tonight when you go home ask your wife if Christ is dwelling in her

heart. And my sister, do you ask your husband a like question, and I tell

you now that many of you will be astonished and made to mourn.

When I commenced seeking religion as a young man, I was living in a

country filled with ungodliness. There was no man I could talk with. A

lady relative of about fifty was in the neighborhood. I knew she belonged

to the Episcopal Church and saw her reading her Prayer Book on the

Sabbath. In my great agony of soul seeking light and the Savior, I went to

her and asked her if she could direct me to Christ. I had thought she knew

Him and had Him in her life, when to my amazement she told me with a

troubled voice and face that she did not have Christ; that she did a [long]

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time ago, twenty years before, but she had lost [Him.] I turned from her

with a groan. I wanted a person who had seen Christ lately, and lo, she had

not looked upon Him for twenty years. Like Joseph, I [sought] Jesus

among my kinsfolk and He was not there. You think that because your

husband or wife are on the church roll that they are all right. You suppose

because your son sings in the choir, and your daughter teaches a

Sunday-school class that they are safe and religious. Do you ask them the

plain question if they love Christ, and their answer will trouble you.

[A] fourth mistake is seen committed by the Caravan or large company

with whom Joseph and Mary were traveling. Although Christ had been

left behind they never turned back! Jesus was missing, but they went on. I

can see the long winding line as they threaded the ravines and pushed

across the plain. They camp that night without Jesus, and next morning

start out again without Jesus, and so pass away out of Judea and Galilee

into the great world beyond and Jesus has been left behind.

With the deepest compassion I see the crowds of this world doing the

same thing! They toil and travel all day without Christ; they go home and

get [rest] without Him, and push on the next day, and the next, and the

next and always without Jesus. They have music, papers, books,

pleasures, travel and business, but they do not have Jesus. They do not

[seem to realize] the dreadfulness of their loss, and so push [on with] life’s

Caravan talking, laughing, singing, loving, hating, camping, sleeping, arising

again, pushing further and further until we see them go out from [us], and

beyond the horizon of our lives and disappear from our view forever. How

we feel like calling them [to] come back; telling that they can never meet

the [dangers], nor stand the toils, nor live right nor die victoriously

without Jesus. And we do call to them; but few seem to turn back. The

great mass push on [without] the Savior whom they have left far behind

[forever].

Here again we are indebted to this wonderful text; the true way is shown

in the conduct of Joseph and Mary, — “they turned back again seeking

Him.” There is nothing else to do if we would find Christ. If we went

away from Him we must return to Him.

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Necessarily it is a sorrowful seeking. The thought is quite a bitter one that

through our own carelessness and neglect of duty the separation was

brought about, [that] we let trifles come in between us; yes, that we [let]

anything thrust itself between the soul and its [highest] joy. Some of the

saddest utterances I ever [heard] fall from human lips are those that

proceed from [seekers] after a lost Christ. It is a melancholy band, [and]

even where God is willing to forgive them, it seems [almost] impossible

for them to forgive themselves.

[I] have noticed also in many instances that it takes [longer] to recover the

Savior than to lose him. Joseph and Mary lost Him in a few minutes or

hours, [but] it was three days before they got him back. This [is not]

compelled to be the case, but through the [heart-sadness] and mental

bewilderment arising from the [separation], the soul loses much time in

finding the [way] of return.

[It] will be a glad seeking, for with all the pain of [recollected]

unfaithfulness and all the sorrow of the separation, the thought that he

now is going back to Christ [can] of itself be an inspiring and glad thought

to the [wanderer]. Sad as his heart may be, his case is unspeakably better

than the man who remains wallowing in his sins far from the Savior. Better

far to turn back with tears, like Joseph and Mary, than to go on with

laughter and chatter like the Caravan.

Moreover it is to be remembered that Christ is not far away. The Scripture

is authority for saying he is not far from any one of us. And in the [case]

before us, when Joseph and Mary turned back [from] Beeroth to

Jerusalem to seek Christ they were separated then from him just eight

miles. This is [the] exact distance between the two places. In other

[words], they were about two hours’ journey from the Lord, [and] I

cannot help but think that most people are [even less] widely separated

from Jesus than this. [I believe] that two hours spent on the face [before]

God [in repentance], faith and prayer, would in the [case of the] majority

of spiritual wanderers restore them [to the loving] embrace of the Son of

God.

Christ is not far off from the saddest, hardest, [and] worst. He walked in

the midst of publicans and [sinners] while on earth, and is near them today

in [His] great mercy. He is oftentimes much closer than [some] dream. He

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walked by the side of two heartsick disciples for several hours before,

they knew Him, [and He] stood before the weeping Mary in the garden

[before] she recognized His voice and form. The very [burden] on the heart

is His own begun work. The heart [sadness] that so discourages is the

result of the light [that] He has poured in, while the pain of soul shows life

and godly sorrow. The dead do not grieve nor feel pain. The living do that.

The very shadow that you feel may come from His blessed form bending

over you.

It is wonderful how utterly unable one is to judge and understand these

phases of feeling and all the phenomena of the soul’s return to God, while

personally separated from Jesus. The sinner who is convicted [does] not

know what is the matter, and the backslider [returning] to God fails to

realize that the sorrow which [weighs] him down is one of the drawings of

heaven, is [a direct] work of the Holy Ghost, and is no occasion [of

despair, but] of confidence and gladness.

[I recall a hymn] which shows this very darkness and despair of the soul

just before its salvation or recovery. In one verse are the lines,

In the next verse the Divine voice is heard speaking; [while] in the third,

salvation bursts on the penitent, and [rapturous] joy overflows his lips in

the words,

Just so I saw a man sink with a groan on the carpet [before] the altar,

saying, “there is no hope” — when [the] very next instant with face

blazing, hands clapping and body flying around the room he was shouting

the praises of God over the full and blessed salvation that had come.

Remember that according to David his “rejoicing” followed a “broken

bones” experience. The breaking comes first, the gladness next.

Still another feature of the recovery of Christ is that you will find Him

where you left him. It was in Jerusalem they became separated from Jesus,

and it was in Jerusalem they recovered him. It is right where you left

Christ you will find Him. Certain things were done or left undone, and

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right there today you must return. You dropped certain duties, and there is

Christ waiting for you to resume them. The burden laid upon you by the

Providence of God you cast off; the cross of Christ you laid aside for

[awhile] and so the glory faded out of your life. The thing to do is to go

back where you threw off the cross and burden, and patiently take them

up again. You will find Christ there at that place and at that moment. He is

waiting for you.

Still again, I notice that the text says that the sorrowing parents found

“Jesus in the Temple.” So it will be with you. The house of God is the

best of places to find Christ. Many hearts that listen to me today grow

warm and tender as they recall the city cathedral or plain country church

at whose altars you found Christ. Dear to us all is the house of God from

the recollection of many spiritual refreshings and uplifts and from the

loving and holy associations of the place. But above all is it precious to a

great number because there they first found or recovered Christ.

A lady friend of mine was riding in a buggy with her husband when they

passed the old country church where she had been converted as a girl.

Requesting him to stop and wait on her awhile, she went up to the old

weather-stained house in the clump of trees, pushed open the door and

knelt down at the altar where when a girl her heart had opened to receive

Jesus as her Savior. It was an humble looking building, with plain pulpit

and altar. The dust was on the floor and the spider web on the window,

but a spiritual beauty and glory invested all because of Him whom she had

found there. For an half hour she knelt alone the shadowy old church

weeping and rejoicing. Finally she arose and went back to her husband

who been patiently awaiting her in the buggy. No word passed, for he saw

from the tear-stained cheek and the holy light in her face that she had met

the Lord in the old meeting house by the road.

Once my presiding elder and myself were entertained by a devoted

Methodist lady at her home, and sent in her carriage to the country church

where the first quarterly meeting service on Saturday morning was to be

held. The lady accompanied us in the carriage.

Twenty years before she had been converted in the church we were going

to; but after a few years of church service had lost Christ. She had become

both bitter and melancholy. Her determination to go with us that morning

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was sudden, and on the way out I observed that she dropped her veil and

scarcely uttered a word. The old church stood in a grassy plot, surrounded

by a rustic graveyard, and with a few old trees sighing solemnly about it.

The presiding elder was one of the godliest men I ever knew, and that

morning he preached with great tenderness and unction. At the conclusion

of the sermon he invited penitents to the altar, and our lady entertainer

who had sat through the entire sermon with her veil down was the first to

respond. I noticed that instead of kneeling at the part of the altar which

was nearest to her, she crossed over to the other side and knelt at a certain

corner. It was the spot where she had found Christ twenty years before.

She had come back to the Temple with a sorrowing heart to recover Him

whom her soul loved and had lost. It was a most pathetic spectacle, the

lonely black-robed figure, the long sweeping veil, the bowed head and

form. In less than ten minutes she found him. I felt the fact before she with

a gush of tears announced it. When she dropped the veil over her face two

hours before we saw a sad-faced woman, when she swept it aside now

with trembling and beautiful joy what a face of holy light and love she

turned upon us. She only lived two years after this, and is today sleeping

in the old graveyard by the side of the church where she first found, and

then afterwards refound her Savior.

Blessed Temples of God all over the land! How I love to see them with

uplifted spires in the city, with belfry peeping above the trees of the

village, or with plain modest front turned to the high road. Thank God for

the churches with their open doors, and solemn bells, and voices of hymn

and prayer. Thank God for the shining-faced preachers in the pulpit, and

the godly old brethren in the Amen Corner. And thank God for the altar,

where kneeling down in the loneliness and bitterness of repentance, we

listened to the cries and shouts around us while the battle was pressed,

and struggled on in the darkness after Christ. Thank God for the loving

hands laid on the bowed head, and the words of cheer and direction

whispered or spoken into the attentive ear. And above all thank God that

at last suddenly through the gloom and storm Jesus appeared to our souls

the fairest among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely. Some of you

may have shouted, others laughed, others of you wept as if your heart

would break, and still others simply sat motionless and voiceless with the

great peace that had come to you. Nevertheless in spite of these different

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manifestations you all knew this, that you had found Jesus and found Him

in the Temple. This was the glorious crowning fact that changed this world

to you, and made the house of God the fairest of buildings to your eyes.

First, keep the eye fixed steadily upon Him. Suppose Joseph and Mary

had done this, then the separation which cost them such solicitude and

pain would never have occurred. The thing to do is to allow no object

come between us and Christ. Keep the eye on Jesus, not occasionally, but

fixedly and continually. It can be done, thank God, in the busiest life. So

Paul says, “Looking unto Jesus.” Not looking to the Temple, but to Jesus.

There are some people who are absorbed in the church rather than Christ.

And there is no question that if they paid as much attention to Jesus as

they do the church they would be saints of the highest order.

Second, keep talking to Jesus. How are we going to lose Him if we

preserve an unbroken communion. When silence is realized in the soul,

there is reason for alarm, and we should at once re-establish the heavenly

intercourse. We read in Genesis that when Abraham ceased communing

with God, then the Lord went up from him. It is so still. If we would

retain Christ by our side we must see to the unbroken communion of our

soul with His Spirit.

Third, get Christ as an indweller. Many of God’s people know him as a

visitor, as one who comes and goes, visiting the heart and then leaving it. It

is in these conscious absences that so much spiritual hurt is realized, and

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Satan gets in his work. There is an experience which greatly increases our

religious strength and so lessons the likelihood and peril of backsliding.

This experience is spoken of by the Savior in the fourteenth chapter of

John where He says if we love Him and keep His commandments He will

come unto us and take up His abode with us. In a word, He will cease to

be a visitor and become an indweller. He who would keep Christ near all

the time should seek this blessing. The wonder with me is how a man can

lose the Savior when he obtains this grace. Finally, keep claiming “the

blood.” If the slightest shadow and spiritual trouble arises, if there has

been any neglect of duty, any word spoken or act done that brings a

shadow or feeling of unrest, then fly at once to the blood that cleanses

from all sin, and claim its present merit and power. There is such a thing as

staying under the blood all the time. He that does that will hardly lose

Christ. Thousands have lived this life; ten thousands are living it today;

and countless millions will yet do so. God grant that you who have Christ

today will never lose Him. It would be better to part with friends, the

whole world and life itself, than to give up Jesus. May we hold on to Him

at every cost, and by so doing will be gainers both in this world and the

world to come.

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CHAPTER 6

THE UTTERMOST SAVIOUR

The longer I study the hearts and lives of men, and the more I read of the

crimes of the day, the more convinced am I that the world needed an

almighty and perfect Savior; that nothing short of a complete ability to

save unto the uttermost would do. Some one must be found who can

descend to the lowest, move and change the hardest, purify the foulest and

establish them in righteousness as they had before been settled in

wickedness. For any one calling himself a Savior, to be unable to grapple

with and triumphantly meet with these conditions would be only to mock

a heartbroken and sin-sick world with the word salvation. It would be the

saddest of delusions and most crushing of disappointments.

Such a Savior God promised the world in Old Testament times; one who

could heal the leprosy of the soul, and no matter how the line of spiritual

necessity should be run, could travel its entire length with recovering grace

and power, and have spiritual abundance left above all that one could ask

or think. The Old Testament world heard the promise, and fell on sleep,

but believed that in the fullness of time this promised Deliverer would

come. And He did come. But He was so unlike what they had expected, so

humble, meek, poor, and with such lowly companions and associates, that

when He stood before them as the man of sorrows, and in such contrast to

the priests and Rabbi’s of a glittering ecclesiasticism, He was rejected.

They would not believe in Him. And as faith is the condition of knowing

Christ, and receiving what is in Christ, many of them died without

discovering that God had been in the flesh in their midst, that the long

promised Messiah had come and they knew and felt Him not. Some,

however, believed, and that belief unlocked the door, and through it Christ

poured into them the fullness of the perfect salvation the Bible talks about

and men need.

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The same condition of things exist today. The Uttermost Savior is being

presented to the world as never before. Many will not believe that He can

destroy the works of the Devil. There are many Christians who will not

credit the Bible statement that Christ can make the heart holy and keep it

so. Meantime the heavenly condition of knowing and receiving is the same.

“According to your faith, so shall it be unto you,” is the unchangeable

Word. Faith is not only the condition of salvation, but the measure of

salvation. According to your faith so shall it be. And yet Christians with

unbelief in their hearts as to purity of heart and holiness of life, wonder

why the doctrine and experience seem shrouded in gloom to them. They

fail to see that their unbelief limits the Holy One of Israel and ties the

Almighty hands of Christ in their case. The gospel says: “He could do no

mighty works there because of their unbelief.” So is it still. Not to believe

that He can, prevents Christ from doing what He wants to do and i s

perfectly able to do. Thus we have a melancholy band in our midst who

are like the ship’s crew we have all heard about, that were dying with

thirst when they were in the midst of the pure waters of the river Amazon

that with its swift current rushes for miles out to sea. Fresh water was all

around them, and they had only to dip it up to drink and live.

But there are believing hearts who by their faith have touched the Savior,

and believing for the uttermost have received to the uttermost. They know

by blissful experience today that Christ can save thoroughly and all the

time, that His blood cleanses from all sin, and that He is a complete Savior.

I want to draw some reflections for our comfort and joy about this

blessed, magnificent Christ. If He is an uttermost Savior then

If He could not, then words mean nothing, and the Scripture itself is not

true. If He could not how sorry we would all be for such a man, what

sorrowful expressions would fall from our lips over a sinner that was too

far gone for Jesus to save. It seems to me that multiplied thousands would

visit him and look upon him in deepest commiseration. Here is the man,

they would say, that Christ cannot save.

If Christ could not save him, then is He robbed of His wondrous glory as a

perfect and Almighty Savior. It is to His glory that He can and does save

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the vilest and foulest. This directs attention to Him today and inspires

hope in the most abandoned.

Let any one of you who listen to me ask how a physician gets a national

reputation and honor? It is not by curing a case of measles or whooping

cough. It was his restoration of a man whom all other doctors despaired of,

or by some skillful surgical operation, so that the medical magazines took

the matter up and the man became famous.

It is not the winning of a few petty cases in some small county court that

obtains national fame for the lawyer, but his skillful and successful

management of some great case in chancery, or his wonderful speech in

behalf of a criminal, that saved the man’s life, when the whole country and

bar had considered the case hopeless. So it is that the saving of the worst

men brings peculiar honor and glory to the Son of God. Hence He went

among the abandoned while on earth, casting out devils from men,

converting public defrauders, redeeming fallen women and saving a thief in

the very moment of death. The reproach urged against Him that He dined

with publicans and sinners, was really to His glory, for as he said, the

whole have no need of a physician, and He had come to we that which was

lost.

John B. Gough was a great Temperance Lecturer, but he mixed an

abundance of gospel with his addresses, and so many sinners were saved

under his labors. A lady one day handed him a white handkerchief

smoothly ironed, saying with happy smiles: “Mr. Gough, when you came

to our town, this handkerchief was wringing wet with tears wept into it

over a drunken husband. Under your words he has become a saved man,

the handkerchief is dry, and I bring it to you as a souvenir or remembrance

of your meeting and the great joy that has come to me.”

I thought when I read the incident that the devil is in the business of

making handkerchiefs wet with the sorrows that sin brings. Oh, the tears

that are being shed today in secret by those who have sinned or have been

sinned against! One could wring water out of these handkerchiefs! But

thank God Jesus is in the business of drying handkerchiefs, and He is

doing so, and will continue to do so by His saving and comforting power

until all tears shall be wiped away and every handkerchief wet with these

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weeping eyes of ours shall be made dry by the warm beams of the Sun of

Righteousness and smooth by the pressure of His tender consoling hand.

Here is another form of sin and condition of misery. It is a peculiar case,

and cannot be dealt with as the sinner. The man is in despair over the fact

that he has sinned against light, knowledge and grace. He knew better, had

the Savior with him, enjoyed communion with heaven, and yet threw all

away for the beggarly elements of this world. He sees hope for the

transgressor, but sees no light for himself. He is fond of quoting what was

said about Esau, that he sought the recovery of his forfeited blessings

bitterly with tears, but in vain. He refers you in his misery to the words of

Paul that if a man sin willfully after receiving the truth that there is no

more sacrifice for sins. In a word, backsliders as a rule go on in despair.

The question is can Christ save them. He who went down into the well for

the ox that had fallen in, will He not seek the sheep gone astray on the

mountains. He who pulled us out of the pit, has He no shepherd’s crook,

no lasso of grace that He could throw about one and draw him back should

he go astray? If He cannot, then there is one kind of sin that Christ has

made no provision for, and He is not the uttermost Savior that the world

wanted and looked for.

But I rejoice that the Savior can recover the backslider. Strange to say that

it is not by threats and abuse. I once thought that the proper method was

to excoriate and blister all such individuals. The Bible teaches differently;

Christ’s method is the opposite.

One way is by tender messages. Tell the backslider that “I am married to

him.” Let the hearer remember that God does not believe in divorces.

Married to the soul through grace He wants no separation. Again He says,

“Return and I will heal all your backslidings.” This shows that the man left

God, and God did not leave the man. Still again this tenderness of spirit is

shown in Christ’s announcement through Mary of His resurrection to the

disciple who had denied Him, “Tell my disciples and Peter that I have

risen from the dead.” I have thought how those two words must have

thrilled the heart of Simon; and how he asked Mary are you sure that He

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said “and Peter?” Yes, she replied these were His very words, “Tell my

disciples and Peter.” From that moment the man hoped, and so became

ready for the interview and restoration on the banks of Lake Galilee.

Another way of reaching them is by the power of beautiful and sacred

memories.

This is the secret of the backsliders unhappiness; he remembers the day

when God’s candle shined on his head and the secret of the Lord was in

his tabernacle. The hymn that all of us are familiar with expresses the

burden of his soul:

Christ calculates on this very misery to draw the man back to Him. He

knows that remembering the beautiful past, the hours of grace, he can

never feel peace again until he returns. And I thank God many do return.

A third spiritual power in the recovery is seen in the fact that Christ once

having occupied the heart no one else can fill His place. Somehow the

walls of the life have been pushed out, and the ceiling lifted up by that

coming in of the Savior. Little things of earth once filled the heart, and the

man in a measure was contented; but after Jesus came in and broadened

and uplifted, nothing else and no one else can ever fill it again. It is vain for

them to try. It is folly and disappointment to have them try.

When I was in Scotland some years ago, I saw a number of tourists sitting

down one after another in the chair of Walter Scott where he wrote those

wonderful brain creations that won for him the title of the Wizard of the

North. The spectacle to me was not without its absurdity as I saw

ordinary people sitting where that extraordinary man sat. The contrast

was tremendous. They could not fill the seat in the true sense. So the heart

once filled by Jesus and now vacated is to be pitied. Many are the persons

and things a man introduces in order to get the joy and rest of former

years. It is a hopeless endeavor; no one, and nothing can fill the place once

occupied by the Son of God.

Christ knows this, and as His Spirit steadily though slowly is able to

reveal this to the disconsolate man, the end can easily be conjectured.

Sooner or later the heart melts, the feet turn, the voice cries Forgive, and

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lo! the healing comes, and the backslider is home again from his

wanderings.

Here is still another aspect of the redeeming grace of Christ. He can forgive

and restore, but what about the effect of these forgiven sins and

wanderings on the character and life. Can a soul ever be the same what it

might have been, had not these transgressions taken place?

In reply I would say that if Christ cannot meet the felt need at this point

with His remedying blood and grace, then He is not the perfect Redeemer

the world wanted. Here would be a time where He would come short and

fail, and that, too, in a most important place.

Some take a gloomy view here and regard spiritual lapses as fatal wounds

from which the individual cannot entirely recover in soul integrity and

moral health and power. It is needless to say that these people have not

seen the real Christ, or anyhow, all that is in the Savior.

A preacher of my acquaintance was addressing a congregation that I had

left in a revival blaze, and told them that while he doubted not that they

had been forgiven and sanctified, yet they were not to forget that the effect

of their past iniquities was in them now and would remain. That part he

insisted could not be remedied. To strengthen his position he related a

time—worn incident of a sinful boy whose father in order to convict him

requested him to drive a nail in a six foot plank every time he disobeyed

him. The boy did so, and one day after several months’ lapse of time, with

his eyes full of tears he brought the board to his father full of nails, each

one of which represented a wrong act. The sight really did convict him,

and he said: “Father I had no idea that I was such a wicked son; and I want

to do better.” The father told him he was glad to hear him speak thus, and

suggested that every time he did right, to draw out a nail. Again the boy

obeyed, and the day came when with a radiant face he brought the plank

with every nail gone. The father expressed himself pleased, but with a

grave face said, “My son, you have drawn the nails, but look at the

nail-holes.” So applied the preacher: God forgives our sins, but the effect

of these sins on our souls and characters remains; the nails are gone, but

the nail-holes are left.

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In reply I wrote to the brother who informed me of the episode, and told

him that the illustration while striking was poor theology and worse

Scripture. That as an illustration it failed anyhow, for I knew a number of

carpenters who could plane that plank smooth, fill up the nail-holes with

cement and paint it so that you would never know a nail had been in it.

And above all I knew of a Carpenter who once lived in Nazareth who

could plane the soul smooth, fill up the cavities in our spiritual nature

made by sin with the cement of His grace, and so paint us with the

crimson of Calvary, that one meeting us in heaven would never know that

we had sinned; that it is out of just such weather-boarding He is building

the mansions of glory in the New Jerusalem.

Not long after this on glancing at a religious paper published in a Home for

Fallen Girls I saw a poem on the first page entitled:

Each verse ended with these lines immediately I sat down and wrote to the

lady manager of the Home that I marveled at her publishing such a soul

paralyzing poem; that having lifted the girls out of the depths, she

immediately struck out of them the hope of soaring and reaching spiritual

heights by this piece of versified falsehood; that as a Mother Goose jingle

it was a success, but as an expression of good theology and true gospel it

was a decided failure.

In the first place we are not birds to begin with and have no wings to

break. In the second place I believe that if both wings of a bird were shot

off, He who made the bird could touch its mangled pinions and make if

need be, new wings and even stronger to beat the air and lift the flyer

above the world. In the third place the application of this melodious jingle

to sinful men and women is utterly contradicted in the Bible and life.

Truly Mary Magdalene had her pinions broken and she was bleeding on

the ground where the archer of hell had shot her. But some One greater

than Satan bent over her touched her, and she flew with the message of the

Resurrection to the heartsick disciples. She flew higher than she had ever

flown before.

John Newton was a fearful character. All the means of grace had failed to

touch him, and so God brewed a special storm at sea to awe his haughty

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spirit. the clouds and waves knotted themselves together, the thunders

crashed in platoons, the lightnings poured down in electric cataracts—the

scene was one of horror, and the heart of the bold bad man trembled and

sank before the Omnipotent God who was flinging His wrath abroad.

Falling on his face on the deck of the ship he called for mercy, and God

forgave him then and there. Later on in England, he was sanctified and

preached with the courage of Paul and wrote hymns with the sweetness of

John. Look into the Methodist Hymn Book and when you read a hymn

especially beautiful, tender and pure you will find John Newton’s name at

the top. I recall a couple of stanzas of one of them:

As you feel the heart melt and eyes fill under these tender and solemn lines

do you think that John Newton, whose pinions had been broken by the

shots of Satan, was soaring as high again?

Hallelujah! Our Christ is able to save unto the uttermost. He can undo the

works of the devil. He found our hearts black, and made them whiter than

the snow. He lifted us up from the pit, and will yet place us above the

stars. Hallelujah! Glory! Bless the Lord! Amen!

This is one of the plainest promises and statements of Divine grace we

have in the Bible. Nearly every prophet spoke of it as a great coming

blessing or deliverance in the last days. Ezekiel, Isaiah, Malachi and Daniel

all wrote about it. The angel said to Mary that His name shall be called

Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. John the Baptist and

St. Paul alike preached about it, while Jesus Himself dwelt upon it. The

great need of men, and the great promise of God is deliverance from sin.

And when we remember that all our trouble comes from sin, what a

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mockery and disappointment that plan of salvation would be which did

not or could not cleanse us and keep us clean from all iniquity.

But I rejoice that Christ is just such an uttermost Savior. He can undo

what Satan has done, and for this purpose was manifested in the world

that He might destroy the works of the devil. This accounts for the glad

note of promise in the Old Testament, and the hallelujah of fulfillment in

the New. Christ can and does save from all sin.

But how does He do it? Men seem to know how we are made sinful, but

how is it that we are kept from sinning?

There is a way of explaining it. There is a philosophy in full salvation. A

true hearted inquiry will be rewarded by seeing that redemption from sin

rests on common sense principles although it is a heavenly revelation.

One explanation is that Christ by a second work of grace takes out of us

the proneness to wander or bent to sinning. While regeneration gives us

power not to sin, the strange inward inclination is left that asserts itself at

different times with more or less power. This tendency arises from the

presence of inbred sin, that unpardonable and unrenewable nature or

principle left in the soul after conversion. It is this sad inheritance, this

carnal mind which is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be,

that accounts for the wandering propensities of the child of God. It is this

very bias or principle that Christ removes or destroys with the Baptism of

the Holy Ghost and of fire. The soul thus blessed rejoices in the

deliverance from a proneness to wander. The man does not sin, because

the inclination is gone. He is still a free moral agent and is in the peril that

encompasses every creature on moral probation from Adam and the angels

down; but still the old leaning in forbidden directions is gone. He does not

sin because he does not want to sin. We hear many attribute the dark fault

of transgression to this rebellious movement within; but suppose this drift

or tendency is gone, then why should one sin?

A second feature in the deliverance is that the Savior so fills the soul with

the Holy Ghost that there is no room for Satan and sin.

Many overlook the weight of this truth. That it is full of force, the

slightest thought will show. If a vessel is filled with one substance how

can there be room for another? If a cup be filled with melted gold, what

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room is there even for air. So fill the soul of the believer with the Holy

Ghost and there is no place for the adversary and his works. This is why

the command in the Scripture is so urgent that we be “filled with the

Spirit.” This is why Christ bade the disciples tarry in Jerusalem until they

should be filled with the Holy Ghost.

I have noticed that the best way to get a rat out of his hole in the ground is

to fill it with water. Immediately he comes forth, and tarries not on the

order of going. As long as that rat-hole is kept filled with water, its former

occupant does not return. He may visit it and look at it, but does not

enter. If the earth is allowed to soak up the water, then he returns, but

never while it is kept filled with that element with which according to his

constitution he cannot adjust his breathing apparatus and general organism.

So the best way to utterly cast out Satan and sin is to be filled with the

Holy Ghost. The devil cannot live in the soul replete with holy fire. Isaiah

long ago cried out: “Who can dwell with devouring fire?” and answers in

the next breath—”He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly.”

Heaven overflowing with the splendor and majesty of the holy God would

be torture to Lucifer; and a soul fired, glowing and filled with the Holy

Ghost cannot be dwelt in by the adversary. It is not only suffering to him,

but its own divine preoccupancy and heaven fullness casts him out. As

long as that soul remains in this state, Satan cannot enter. He may hang

around in the neighborhood and plot its overthrow, but he cannot come in.

His only hope is to be found in earth soakage or the leakage of grace that is

beheld in some lives. Then it is that the old gray rat of hell returns to his

former quarters.

Some profess to be amazed how such a thing can be; how a sanctified soul

can ever fall into sin or receive the devil again. All this is answered by the

words of Christ who tells of a man who had a field of wheat (not tares),

and while he slept his adversary came and sowed tares. He also spoke of a

man from whom evil spirits had been cast, but by some lack of

faithfulness upon the part of the individual whose soul had been swept

and garnished, Satan with other evil spirits came and took possession of

him again.

Our privilege and duty is to keep filled with the Spirit. This is our best

defense. Satan cannot enter a soul that is always full of the Holy Ghost.

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A third feature of the deliverance from sin is seen in the power of a

manifestation of Christ to the soul of the believer.

Many have utterly overlooked this promise and privilege, and the

wondrous moral effect it exercises upon the life. And yet here it is in

manifestation of Himself to believers. To the man who keeps his

commandments and loves him, He says: “I will manifest myself to him.”

Pardon is a manifestation of mercy to a sinner, but here is a disclosure of

grace to followers. Here is an unveiling of Christ Himself to the believer in

such transporting glory that the man ever after feels weaned from earth,

joined to heaven, established, satisfied and running over with a bubbling

joy. He is settled by a vision, knowledge and possession of Christ never

enjoyed before.

Who wonders that so many converts are found straying from the fold into

forbidden fields who have not had this entrancing view of the Divine

Shepherd? Who marvels at the wandering affections of God’s people who

have not yet beheld Christ as the Bridegroom of the soul. It is that vision,

that showing Himself to the believer, that manifestation of His personal

beauty and ineffable holy charms that the soul fairly intoxicated with love

of the personal Christ wants nothing better, and desires no one else. Now

for the first time the real depth of certain Bible expressions are

understood, and the heart fairly revels in them. Now indeed, “He is the

chief among ten thousand—the one altogether lovely.”

The difficulty of securing the attention and inspiring the love of a man or

woman whose heart is filled with the image, and whose pulses thrill at the

name of another, is readily acceded. So Christ can stamp His picture in our

hearts, fill our souls with ecstasy at His touch and voice, and cause us to

be contented under the loss of all things, so long as we have Him. This is

the type of religious experience that is to save the Church from

backsliding, and the life that is to capture the world for God.

The Song of Solomon contains the thought I am advancing now. For a long

time I failed to see the meaning and realize the force of this small book of

the Old Testament. I used to wonder why it was in the Bible at all, and

thought it would be better for it not to be there. I thought it was gross,

when today I see there is not a more profoundly spiritual book in the

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volume of sacred writ. The very manifestation and experience I speak of,

glows and burns in the song of the wise man. The bridegroom is seen to be

with the bride, but she is not all that she should be, and falls asleep, and

awakes to and him whom she loved gone. He placed, however, his hand on

the lock of the door, and left enough perfume by his touch to inflame her

soul for his presence if she needed that in addition to arouse her. She might

well reason that if his fingers drop sweetness, then how much more of that

fragrance is in himself. So she starts out to find him, and it proves a

difficult search. There are ridiculers and opposers. She asks the daughters

of Jerusalem, but they have not seen him. She approaches the watchman

of Zion with the query “Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?” In reply

they answered with stones, and wounded her. But she was not to be

diverted from her purpose, and so still seeking, at last the discovery is

made and reunion is seen. All this is told in a delightful chronological

confusion, as would be natural in the language of love, and as is also

notably seen in the repetitions or going over again of facts in oriental

narratives. It would be hard to draw a picture of more perfect delight,

contentment and restful love, than in the words of the bride after the has

found her love. “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner

over me was love. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am

sick of love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth

embrace me.” The great truth that right here appeals to the reader is, that

with such a love and such gladdening presence, how vain it would be to try

to w in this happy, contented heart away. She is satisfied.

It was quite a while before I saw in my Bible studies that there is a

twofold seeking spoken of; one in which Christ seeks the soul of the lost,

and the other a seeking by the believer of Christ Himself. He first finds us,

and now after that, we are to find Him in the deep, delightful sense we

have been speaking. The Scripture tells in a sentence concerning that latter

search, that “In the day ye seek me with all your heart, ye shall find Me.”

In the Song of Solomon is the portrayal how it all happened. When Christ

found you, you possessed a delightful experience and great joy for a while.

That there would be withdrawings of His presence you did not dream. But

the melancholy experience came. Perhaps you slept and let Him slip away.

Perhaps He had to leave you to make you ask the question, why does He

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leave me? This anxious interrogation would bring out the fact of inbred sin.

Jesus cannot and will not abide in the soul with carnality or the old man.

Regeneration is made up of delightful visits of the Son of God, but the

abiding of his glorious presence and personality is the result of a second

work of grace, called sanctification, in which inbred sin is burned out by

the baptism of the Holy Ghost. As the believer discovers these

momentous facts of the spiritual life, he begins to seek now after Christ

himself. It is not a blessing so much he wants as the Blesser. He wants

Jesus enthroned, and always abiding in the soul. As soon as the object of

his search is discovered, hell opposes him. Ridicule and resistance also

meet him in quarters where one would hardly expect such things. The

daughters of Jerusalem are asked if they have seen Him, but as they all

belong to the Ladies’ Aid Society, with its bustling activity that

transforms God’s Church into part kitchen and part theater, they can give

the inquirer no help. Then the watchmen of Zion are interrogated, and they

answer with stones. One seeking is enough for them. Christ sought them

and found them; they want nothing more and nothing better. They got it

all in conversion, there is nothing more, is their discouraging statement.

Somehow the difference between Christ finding them, and their finding

Christ, does not seem to strike them. But great is the difference. Happy is

the man or woman who will not be stoned into silence and spiritual

inactivity. Blessed the soul that presses on with wounds and bruises of

spirit, toward Him who left enough frankincense on the door lock of a

single experience to make the heart pant after the whole Christ. If the

fingers are so fragrant, what of Him? If for an hour he was so precious,

what must it be to have him in the soul all the time? So on you go, nothing

daunted by looks, smiles and blows, until at last, hallelujah to God! you

find Him. Was it on a mountain of myrrh you discovered Him? Surely

nature itself was like a bed of roses that day, and hillocks swelled into

lordly mountains covered with cinnamon groves, and heaven was in full

view, whether we looked through sunset bars, or watched a curtain of gold

roll up in the eastern sky. The soul is taken now to a banqueting house. It

is hungry no more. Flagons of wine and rosy apples, standing for

sweetness and exhilaration, make heavenly food. The banner of love is

over you. It is no concealed blessing; the standard is lifted for all to see; it

is the pennon of holy, heavenly love. Nor is this all—He is there whom

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the soul loveth and hath found for itself. Sweet, delicious, trembling,

blessed discovery. “His left hand is under my head—his right hand doth

embrace me.” What a picture of content. It is God’s own sketch of the

complete satisfaction of the soul, when Christ becomes all, and in all. It is

an Old Testament photograph of perfect love.

“I am sick of love,” said the happy finder of the bridegroom. Not

disagreeably sick, and not sick of love in a sense made by the drifting

meaning of the preposition; but sick with love, as fever runs along the

veins and crimsons the face; so this perfect love strikes in, goes through,

shines in the eyes, rings in the tremulous voice, and asks no higher

privilege than always to be thus in the arms of Christ.

With such a love, such an upwelling joy, such deep inward content and

satisfaction in Him, the difficulty of enticing the soul away into sin

becomes more apparent. The establishment in righteousness is seen by the

power of a glorious heartfilling manifestation of the grace and glory of the

Son of God to the soul.

A fourth explanation of deliverance from sin, is seen in the power over

Satan by an indwelling Christ.

I have noticed that our highway tramps are very bold in their demands for

food, when they see no man about the house, but only a frightened woman

answers the knock. How insolently he orders, rather than begs for food.

He wants hot coffee and bread. But what if right in the midst of this

blustering he hears a heavy step in the hall, and catches sight of a man’s

hat? Lo, he is gone. Satan is the old tramp of eternity, and can tell at a

glance whether Christ is a visitor or indweller with our souls. His boldest

demands are made when he sees unmistakable signs that Christ is not in

the house. These are the days when regenerated people say and do so

many questionable things. All discouraged they spread the table, in answer

to the evil one. Christ is not sensibly with them that day, and the Devil

knows it. Oh for the grace that makes the Savior a constant abider in the

soul! He is the strength of the house; and when the adversary sees the

thorn-crowned face looking out of the window of the soul at him, he can

only stand it a little while, and away he goes.

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A fifth explanation of the deliverance is seen in the perpetual intercession

for us, on the part of Christ. Hear what the text says: “He is able to save

them to the uttermost—seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession for

them.”

A man once sent me word that my preaching the doctrine of living without

sin, destroyed the advocacy of Christ, for the Bible said, “If any man sin

we have an advocate with the Father.” Now then, he argued, if we live

without sin, what need of Christ? The message amazed me to see that the

man utterly failed to realize that the advocacy of Christ does not exist that

we might sin, but to save us from sin; and furthermore, to keep us from

sin. Let every one listen to the whole verse again, from which the text is

taken: “He is able also to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God

by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Here it is

plainly stated that Christ makes constant prayer and advocates our cause

continually, in order to save us to the uttermost, or keep us from all sin.

Thank God for this tireless advocate of the skies; thank God for the

perpetual intercession of Jesus Christ before the throne of the Father in

our behalf. Where would we have been today but for these prayers? What

sins we have been diverted from, and what falls prevented in our lives by

that loving, unwearied pleader in heaven.

If Christ could not do this he would not be an uttermost Savior, nor the

Savior that men need and desire. We want not an occasional deliverance,

not a spasmodic purity and piety, but an everlasting salvation, even in this

world.

If you will notice the marginal reading in the King James version, you will

see that the word “uttermost” is translated “evermore.” He is able to save

evermore. This is a beautiful and blessed salvation. Think of it, always

saved.

You and I know of people who are saved Sunday, but not Monday. God

send us the evermore salvation We have seen persons who were religious

when in pious company and spiritual surroundings, but the instant they

were thrown in worldly circles they would fall into the spirit,

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conversation, and conduct of the new company. They were like spiritual

chameleons. There are Christians who keep God’s commandments in

America, but break them in England. There they go sightseeing on the

Sabbath, and otherwise violate the sanctity of the day, as if the Atlantic

ocean had washed away their obligations to God.

I want a salvation that saves us on both sides of the Atlantic, in all kinds

of company, in each hour of the day, in every day of the year, through

every season that rolls, and in every changing circumstance of life, world

without end. This is what Christ came to do, and does do in many lives.

This is why He is called the uttermost Savior; He can save evermore.

I once read of a devout man, but who was a stranger to sanctification, that

when he felt a growing excitement in conversation, would withdraw to an

opposite corner of the room, and then utter a whispered prayer, “Lord,

calm the spirit of thy servant.” I thought then that this was a remarkable

indication of piety, but I have since seen that the man, good as he was, did

not know Christ as the uttermost Savior. Why need I walk to another

corner of a room to get Christ to cleanse, keep, restore, or calm me? If He

is the Savior the Bible speaks of, He can save and keep in every corner of

every room, of every house, in every land, both now and forevermore. Not

only at Jerusalem and Mt. Gerizim is Jesus to be found and His presence

realized, but here, there, anywhere, everywhere, and at all times the

precious blood cleanses, and the mighty Savior keeps.

Long before I received this blessing, I became acquainted with an elderly

lady who enjoyed this grace. Her money was swept from her, her husband

was thriftless, her children trifling, her health failed, and trouble after

trouble beat upon her; yet through it all I marked a serenity of spirit that

none of these things disturbed. She never fretted or murmured, but through

all her sorrows, and sicknesses, and reverses, bore a sweet, patient, loving

smile upon her face that did far more than argumentative sermons and

logical books, to prove there was such an experience as entire

sanctification. She possessed the uttermost Savior, and enjoyed the

evermore salvation.

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I love to think of the almightiness of Christ. That He is not only a

personal Savior but a worldwide Redeemer. He must be this to be the

uttermost Savior.

Suppose there were classes and nations He could not reach. That depths

of moral turpitude embarrassed, and numbers staggered Him. Then would

Heaven have sent a deliverer to earth who did not deserve the name. He

would not be as mighty as sin, and could not undo with grace the far

reaching works of evil. Some men then would have to be lost on account of

the weakness of salvation, and some tribes and nations would have to

perish, because the salvation of our God could not compass all.

Who believes this? Every heart before me cries out Christ could save all

men, and now, if they would let Him.

He certainly did enough to beget faith in us concerning His power. When

He healed ten lepers in a single second of an incurable disease, that was to

show you what He could do. When He made ten thousand devils come

pouring like a black Niagara out of the man, that was to show us He could

cast all devils out of all men, if men would allow Him. When He sanctified

one hundred and twenty souls in a moment with a flash of holy fire from

heaven, and when in the next hour He saved the souls of three thousand

men, and next day five thousand, that was to let us know that He could at

this moment regenerate and sanctify every human being on this round

world who would look up, call on Him, and believe and receive.

Right now, while I speak, Christ is saving souls in ten thousand different

towns and cities over our land. Nor is that all. He is saving in other

countries and nations as well. Salvation is descending upon the soldier in

the army, the sailor on the sea, the farmer in the furrow, the toiler in the

mine, the invalid in the sick chamber, the condemned man in the prison. He

is omnipresent with the human race as the atmosphere, and would rush as

the breath of life into every dying soul, as air into the respiratory lung, if

men would receive Him.

He that is such a being, and is doing such a work, could easily save the

entire world the next moment, if this world would call upon Him. So far

from such an universal waiting upon Him, staggering and overwhelming

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Him, it is just what He wants. Nothing would please Him better. Long ago

He has given the challenge or invitation, “Look unto me, all ye ends of the

earth, and be ye saved.” Happy would it be for the world if it would cast

this upward look! A shock of divine glory would make this old earth

tremble like that house in Jerusalem shook when the Holy Ghost filled the

disciples. Devils would fly like night birds from the blaze of Gospel day,

and wear crepe for a thousand years, while dog fennel grew rank over

every road and path to hell. The millennium would sweep like a belt of

light and fire around the globe, and angels swinging low in the heavens

would sing their glad songs over every field and town of the happy,

restored planet, not this time about the advent of the Redeemer, but over

the perfect, worldwide victory of the Son of God.

Thus far in the history and progress of redemption we have seen the love,

grace, wisdom, goodness, and mercy of Christ, but only small measures of

his power. “The thunder of His power,” is to be beheld in the coming ages

of the world. Just now only individuals, and small groups of repenting and

believing souls, will allow him to work in them. But the day is drawing

near when, under the proclamation of the Gospel, men will hear what

Christ is able and willing to do; faith will spring up, glory will come down,

communities and cities will be swept into salvation, as thousand acre fields

are engulfed by the rushing Mississippi, and kingdoms and nations will be

born unto God in a day. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

O the omnipotent forces locked up in Christ today through the unbelief of

men! He can do no mighty works, because of unbelief. But faith in Him

unties His hands, raises the floodgates, brings down rushing cataracts of

salvation, and unlooses from the skies heavenly storms that will blow the

foulness of sin away, and leave the atmosphere of heart, home, and the

world, pure, sweet, and fresh with the life, love, and glory of heaven.

In Him is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is able to save them to

the uttermost that come unto God by Him. And all that come; thank God

for the Bible proclamation that all can come. He is able to save, not simply

a few, or a larger number, but all that come.

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But the condition is that we must come to Him. He that stays away from

Christ is lost both now and forever. He that comes to Jesus, whether for

pardon or holiness, will be met, welcomed, embraced, loved, blessed, and

saved to the uttermost. Oh that every hungry, weary, lonely, sin-sick soul

would come to Jesus now. He says: “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in

no wise cast out.”

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CHAPTER 7

THE UNCONTAINABLE BLESSING

“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat

hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you

out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” —

The book of Malachi contains a recognition of the fact of Divine judgment

as a result of faithlessness upon the part of God’s people. They had kept

back that which belonged to the Lord and were now “cursed with a curse.”

Poverty of various kinds was now upon them; and the prophet was

showing them the way out of their calamities, and did it most powerfully

in the words of the text.

If any one wants to know what spiritual poverty is, what it is to have

heaviness of soul, and get into a foggy and twilight-kind of experience, let

him take from God’s altar that which was once given to Him. It may be a

small thing, but there is nothing little in the eyes of Love; and the fact that

it is a mere trinket which has been presented to the friend or loved one and

possesses little value, does not make the pang less when it is taken away,

for it is the withdrawal of what was once given which hurts. God is a

jealous God; He says so, and He cannot look with indifference upon such

acts, when we remove from the altar anything once devoted to Him. He

would not be true to Himself or to us if He turned the same look on us

when we did these things. So to “rob” Him even of the smaller gifts is to

bring at once the hazy cloudy feeling to the soul, and persisted in there

comes greater calamity.

So the text is an exhortation along this line and coupled with a promise. It

is a wonderful promise and covers a very remarkable experience. We

notice, first

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It is a blessed thought to me that God will accept anything from us. He

owns everything, and yet here He is placing Himself in the attitude of a

recipient of favors, while we pose as donors. Meantime there is nothing

we bring Him but already belongs to Him. The whole occurrence is

wonderful.

Malachi calls the things we owe God, tithes. For a long time I had a very

narrow conception of the word. It had but one meaning, but as time passed

and the Book unfolded and increasing light came, I saw it had greater

lengths and breadths, and that to bring all the tithes to God meant a great

deal.

One meaning, of course, of the word refers to the tenth of our substance.

This was a law in the Levitical economy and a custom observed by

Abraham. There is no hint that it has been revoked. If a Jew loved his God

enough to give this amount, we ought certainly to be as devoted to our

Savior. It should be a part of the consecration to which Malachi exhorts

us. What a blessing it would be to the church and to us all if we did so.

Again we owe the Lord a seventh of our time. The world has never been

released from this obligation, and that same world never practices a poorer

piece of economy than when it robs God of the Sabbath or a part of that

day. There is no estimating the amount of crime prevented by men going

up to church on the Lord’s day and coming in contact with the word of

God and influences of the other world. Moreover, a faithful observance of

the Sabbath is necessary to the Christian to find this great blessing the

prophet speaks of. A new covenant has to be made respecting its

sacredness, and the things to be done and not done on that day.

Third, we owe the body to the Lord. “I beseech you brethren by the

mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God”.

Many have been afraid to do this, but he who does it does a wise thing.

No one can take as good care of it as the Lord who made it. It is necessary

for the obtainment of the blessing that every member of the body, tongue,

eyes, ears, hands, feet and all shall be solemnly given and set apart for

God.

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Fourth, we must give God the heart. “My son, give me thy heart.” This

means the soul, with all its powers, capacities and affections. Happy the

man who will do this; he will never be sorry for having done so. He who

made the soul can best manage it and keep it in order. The jeweler is the

proper person to carry your watch to, he can do a better part by it than a

blacksmith. So I am glad that in the list of what we are to bring to God, the

soul is included.

Fifth, I find still deeper requisition upon us in the Bible, in the words:

“Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the

glory of God.” Truly this goes down deep and is all embracing. Whether

we rise up or lie down, remain in the house or go abroad, eat, drink or

sleep, we must do all to the glory of God!

Many Christians have fairly trembled before this verse. It breathes of a

consecration so complete that they were not ready to make it. It actually

looked at times like bondage—and yet to the man in the secret of the Lord

it is perfect and glorious liberty. The demand may look like a towering

stone and iron gate, but inside is a park with beautiful lakes, whispering

groves, winding roads, flower lined paths and singing birds. Behind the

slashing, cutting swords of the cherubim in this verse is a life and

experience as lovely, glorious and blessed as Paradise.

Sixth, we descend still deeper in the Word of God to find that the

consecration we have to make to obtain the great blessing Malachi speaks

of is a perfect consecration. It must be so to obtain such a perfect blessing.

The tithes due the Lord are found to be more than first dreamed of. All

must be forsaken, everything must be hated in comparison with the Son of

God. It is a hard saying with some, and so they fall away. But others

press on, crying, “Lord, to whom shall we go, but unto Thee?” and in the

midst of the cry and pursuit they find themselves in the seventh heaven.

Listen while I read to you the sixth tithe: “He that loveth father or mother

more than Me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter

more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he that taketh not his cross and

followeth after Me is not worthy of Me.”

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“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother and

wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life

also, he cannot be my disciple.”

“So, likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he

hath, he cannot be my disciple.”

Suppose we look around and see who has paid this tithe. Who among your

religious acquaintances has made such a complete consecration?

This demand of Christ, as laid beside the Christian lives about me, used to

puzzle me greatly. I did not see any one who hated father, mother and

family in the Gospel sense, and who had forsaken all. I saw that they were

undoubtedly Christians, but they evidently had not met this great

requirement and paid their tithe. For years I could not understand; but

after the reception of the blessing of sanctification the light came. I saw at

once that here was not the condition of salvation, but the price of the

greater blessing of the Gospel, the one that Malachi is prophesying about.

The condition of salvation is repentance and faith; not a word about the

perfect consecration spoken of in the passages I quoted. What has a sinner

to consecrate? The Bible teaches that the worst sinner that lives shall be

saved if he repents and believes. This is what millions have done, and find

themselves in the church today, and in grace as well, but ignorant of that

complete offering of the life which brings the uncontainable blessing called

Purity, Perfect Love, the Abundant Life, the Indwelling Christ, Holiness

and Entire Sanctification.

Again, I notice in this sixth tithe passage that Christ said if a man did not

do it he was “not worthy of Him. “ He did not say worthy of salvation,

but “worthy of Me.” There is a great difference. It was long before I saw

it; but I saw it at last, and the Bible became a new book.

There is a difference between a gift and the giver. It is one thing for a

woman to make and present to a man such things as dressing gowns,

slippers, watchpockets, etc., and another thing altogether to give herself to

him as his wife. The last is greater than the first; and the man feels it. He

has now not only the gifts, but the woman herself, who can make the gifts.

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So in the spiritual life. We obtain the gifts of salvation in regeneration; but

the Bible plainly teaches a mightier work and greater blessing when Christ

himself comes into the soul to abide perpetually. Speaking of it, He said:

“We will come unto him and take up our abode with him.” What are the

gifts of Christ beside Christ himself? Love, joy and peace seem to come

and go in the converted life, but in the deeper experience of which I speak

the Savior stays in the heart all the time. It was to this that Christ alluded

when He said unless we did certain things we were “not worthy of Him.”

So there is a profounder grace; one that for sweetness and power

transcends anything in the regenerated life. It is given in answer to a

complete and eternal devotement of everything to God. There must be a

consecration that has not a single mental reservation. All must be laid on

the altar, and the soul must cry, “O Lord, I am wholly and forever thine.”

Before this perfect consecration held forth in the Word of God many

Christians are trembling and shrinking today. They fear that the step will

bankrupt them. They make the remarkable mistake in thinking that they

can outgive God; that they can surrender more to the Lord than He is able

to recompense them for. In a word, that they can do more for him than He

can do for them.

The wonderful proposition of Heaven is that if we give ourselves to God,

He will give Himself to us. What a marvellous proposition! What an

amazing exchange! And what a blessed experience it is bound to be when

the exchange takes place!

I was never a good trader in my life, and remember some most unfortunate

transactions that took place in my boyhood and manhood, all of which

went to show a certain lacking business faculty; But there was one trade I

made eight years ago in which I got a most decided advantage. It was when

I gave myself to Christ, and secured Him in even exchange. I can never

think of it without smiling and exulting as well. Even now the thought of

how I got rid of my poor, tired, nervous self, and obtained in blessed

exchange the great soothing tranquilizing Christ, sends thrills of gladness

and voices of praise all through my being. I certainly got the best of that

business occurrence and the Lord knew it.

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I have noticed that many of God’s people will not take this step of perfect

consecration, this laying on the altar of everything, until a few hours or

days before they die. Then it is that finding they must leave the world,

they surrender first one thing and then another until all is given up. Father,

mother, husband and children, land property and all are at last laid

altogether and forever on the altar.

Now there was a law in the worship and sacrifices of the Temple, that

when a man brought his gift to the altar, the priest had always to put in an

appearance and receive the offering. It is but a type or figure of what takes

place in these Gospel days, for when an individual lays himself and all on

the altar, Christ, our priest, has to appear, and thank God does appear. He

accepts the gift and the fire falls.

Thus it is that when a Christian delays this act of perfect consecration to

the death hour; when only two or three days before passing away into the

spirit world he brings all his tithes into the storehouse, or lays his all on

the altar, Christ in his faithfulness appears, receives the gift, the fire falls,

and the dying Christian shouts, rejoices, preaches to all about his

death-bed and goes off in a chariot of glory.

Meanwhile members of the family marvel over the scene, wonder why

“father” or “mother” had not been that way before, and conclude that this

is the “dying grace” they have often heard about, when the fact is there is

no such blessing as dying grace. The Bible has no word about such a

blessing. The truth is that “father” or “mother” for the first time in their

Christian lives brought all the tithes into the storehouse, or laid all their

gifts on the altar. The instant they did so the Holy fire fell and they were

sanctified.

Just as true is it, that if this is done three years before you die, instead of

three days, the same fire will fall. Yes, verily, if a man will put his all on

the altar ten, twenty or forty years before death, the power of God will

come down, Jesus will baptize the soul with the Holy Ghost and with fire,

and the same blessing that made the dying Christian happy will make the

living child of God just as joyful all the days of his life.

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So much then for the exhortation of the text which covers the condition of

the obtainment of the wonderful grace. I turn now to consider the second

thought of the text, and that is

This promise presents the blessing under several heads or points of

description, which taken together show up the very work of divine grace,

the discussion of which is agitating the church today.

Read the words, “I will open you the windows of heaven.” To my mind

this is a striking figure. A house with doors and windows all shut up is not

a very attractive spectacle. It has a forbidding look. It seems to hold us off

and say that we are not welcome. When I approach a dwelling to pay a

visit, it is always an agreeable sight to see the hall door wide open, the

windows upraised with lace curtains fluttering and mocking bird singing in

its cage. The whole appearance is one of friendly greeting and welcome.

Some of God’s people know what it is to walk under the sky with a

feeling that every door and window above is shut and barred. The upward

thought is driven back, and the prayer finds no entrance or admission

above. The heaven seems perfectly impenetrable, and lowers like a ceiling

of iron or brass so that nothing in the shape of prayer or message gets

through to God. Some listening to me know it has been weeks or months

since your supplications found admission to the Throne. Just as the palm

of my hand now resists all efforts of my finger to get through it, so

something above you shuts out and keeps down your prayers. They

cannot get through. The explanation is that the windows of heaven are

closed.

But the experience this text speaks of is one where every door and

window of glory is opened above you, where the very sky is punctured

with apertures; and just as I spread the fingers of my hand wide open, and

the fingers of the other can now shove through at any point, so can the

thoughts, desires, whispers and petitions of your soul leap through space

and fly at once unhindered into the immediate presence of God.

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Oh, what a luxury, joy and blessedness it is to feel there is no obstruction

between the soul and God. To walk under a heaven filled with open

windows, through which flows down upon your spirit the very influences

that stir about the City of Gold and River of Life. When you can look up

and feel there is nothing, not even a cloud the size of a man’s hand,

between you and God, and your every word of praise or prayer comes

instantly into the ear and heart of the Savior. Truly, if this was the only

feature of the great blessing it would pay to get it.

The text says. “I will pour you out a blessing” This expression sounded so

familiarly to me that I went back into the Old Testament to find it, and at

last located it in the book of Joel, where he, in common with other

prophets, in speaking of a great coming blessing to the church, said: “It

shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.”

Taking up the Scriptures and coming forward to see when this promise

took place, I find the first fulfillment in the Upper Room in Jerusalem on

the Day of Pentecost. The Holy Ghost fell or was poured out upon one

hundred and twenty waiting and praying disciples of Jesus Christ. The

instant it took place, Peter sprang to his feet and cried, “This is that which

was spoken of by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last

days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.” He then

added that it was not simply for the disciples but “for you and your

children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God

shall call.”

From that day this new blessing for the church began to descend upon

those who sought it aright and paid the full price for it. So it fell upon the

Samaritans, and upon Cornelius the Roman centurion, and upon the

Ephesian disciples. During the Dark Ages it was scarcely known, but was

sought and found by the Quakers under George Fox, and by the

Moravians. Later still, under the preaching of Wesley and his lay workers,

many obtained the glorious baptism, and the fire spread not only through

England but over America. Today there are few but have heard of it, and

many are receiving it.

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When I heard of the blessing I never rested until it came upon me. For

three days I was in an agony of prayer. Suddenly, on the morning of the

third day, the blessing came. It was poured! It came down from above just

as Joel and Peter said it would. Bishop Hamline said when he received it

he felt it touch his head and then go down through him. It is always from

above. I never heard of any one saying that it started in the feet and

worked up. The feeling is that it comes down from above. It is too sweet

and blessed to come from any other quarter.

If you study the principle of a shower bath, you will notice that when a

man pulls the cord attached to the lever above his head he will instantly

receive a Niagara like dash of water upon him. So let a man pull on the

rope of a perfect consecration, and he will get a blessing that he will talk

about all the rest of his life.

I have been informed that in the faraway West they have a curious way of

watering their stock. There is a platform ten feet square, with a large

trough upon it to hold the water. As water is scarce in that region, and the

dry winds evaporate the precious fluid rapidly, the platform is so arranged

with some simple machinery and a trigger that no water gets into the

trough until the ox stands on the platform. If the animal puts two feet, or

just half his weight, on the planks, the water does not come. It takes the

whole ox, head, horns, hide, hoofs and all, to get that water. The instant

the animal, with his entire weight, is on the platform, the trigger moves,

and gush!—here comes the water into the trough shining, sparkling and in

greatest abundance for him.

God has a platform called Perfect Consecration. It stands marvelously

connected with the great blessing He has for the soul of the believer. It has

some kind of spiritual machinery above it that can tell the exact physical

and moral weight of the man desiring the downpour of the outpoured

blessing. It requires the whole weight of the man to get the blessing. If a

man registers one hundred and fifty pounds, it is no use for him to palm

off one hundred and forty-nine on God. He knows every pennyweight of

the life. He is going to give all, and demands all. It is vain to try to deceive

Him. We cannot deceive the weighing scales on street corners and in

waiting rooms. The arrow will not point out your weight until you drop

your coin in the slot. The Platform of Consecration seems to have no

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thought, intelligence, design, life or motion about it so long as the man fails

to place the whole of himself and life upon it. God seems to be far away

and oblivious of what is going on. The heavens look empty. The sky is

without answering voice or waving hand. The spiritual slot machine does

not record; there is no sparkling, overflowing water in the trough of life.

And yet, in spite of these things, what faithful machinery is in and under

that platform! How the arrow points when the price is paid! How

delicate, and yet how true and powerful that spring in the moral machinery

of His great grace, that the instant it is touched a cataract of glory descends

into the soul!

So it has ever proved, so it will always prove, the moment the whole man

is on the platform of a perfect abandonment and consecration to God, the

trigger is touched, the telegram flashes to the skies “all is on”—and lo! here

comes the rushing, sweeping, gladdening, overpowering and yet

empowering “poured-out” blessing that Jesus gives, that Joel talked about,

and that Peter and the other disciples receiving stirred all Jerusalem with

and afterward the whole world.

Brethren have you had the poured-out blessing? If not, then shove your

gift through the slot, pull on the rope, get on the platform and never rest

until the Son of God baptizes you with the Holy Ghost and with fire,

which is the blessing I speak of.

This is taught in the words: “There shall not be room enough to receive it.”

Of course if there is not room in the heart to receive it, when it is a full

blessing, and this is the very blessing we all want and need.

I notice that the soul is so constituted that it craves a full blessing. What it

gets at regeneration does not satisfy it, I never knew a genuinely converted

man in my life who was really growing in grace but desired something

more than he possessed. He wants a “fullness,” and so he prays to be

“filled.”

This very condition of spirit to my mind is a proof of the blessing. It is

the logic of Heaven in the soul. It pleads from the premises of a conscious

emptiness and yearning for fullness, to the irresistible conclusion of such a

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filling. The craving declares the blessing. Just as thirst proves the existence

of water, and hunger declares the fact of bread, so the longing for fullness

shows there is a filling blessing. Somehow I do not dread the denials and

attacks of the skeptical upon the doctrine so long as I find these mighty

instincts and appetites in the soul reaching out for the blessing itself. The

inward instinct will outweigh in the long run the sneer of the scoffer and

opposer.

I have also observed that in the Bible there is frequent reference to a

blessing of fullness. Paul writes about it to a certain church, telling them

that when he visited them again he was going to come in “the fullness of

the blessing of the gospel of Christ” So there is a blessing of the Gospel of

Christ, and a fullness of the blessing. The first time he came he brought the

good news of pardon and salvation, but when he came again he proposed

coming in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ.

There is a command in the Bible bidding us “Be filled with the Spirit,” as

clearly as sinners are told to “Repent.” God never tells a sinner to be filled

with the Spirit; he is commanded to repent and thereby obtain the first

measure of the Spirit. It is the believer who is urged to be filled.

It was for this purpose that the disciples tarried in the Upper Room ten

days. Not to get pardon, or even obtain the Spirit, for He had been

breathed upon them days before by the Savior, and Christ Himself had

said: “He (the Spirit) dwelleth with you.” They spent the ten days in

prayer and waiting for the filling of the Spirit; and so we read that on the

Day of Pentecost while they were all with one accord together in one

place, suddenly the Spirit fell upon them, and “they were all filled with

the Holy Ghost.”

So the instincts and yearnings of the soul find a spiritual correlative in the

Bible. The want is recognized and the supply is provided. The command

“Be filled” is in exact harmony with the desire of the soul to be filled.

With these two great facts before me of the souls yearning and the Bible

teaching, I can never dread the antagonistic writings of men in the church

who try to explain away the Great Blessing or deny it altogether. The

heaven inspired hunger for heart purity, and the declarations and

commands of the Word of God will be more than a match for all opposers

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of this experience, whether they be laymen or preachers, learned or

unlearned, prominent or obscure, powerful, more powerful or most

powerful.

There is a blessing that fills the soul. Every room, hall and closet of ones

being is filled with love, joy and glory. Malachi talked about it in his time,

Peter in his day, Wesley in his age, and please God we who have it will

testify to it in the evening of the nineteenth century.

This appears in the words, “There shall not be room enough to receive it.”

Truly, then, if there is no room for the blessing, it must be an

uncontainable one.

This is the very kind of blessing the Church wants. She has many

blessings already; we do not deny it, and thank God for it. But the trouble

is they are all containable. God’s people have love, but they have no

difficulty in controlling it. They have joy, but it is easily kept under. They

have the missionary spirit and the benevolent spirit, but all are easily

managed, kept in and kept down. At this rate it is easy to see the heathen

will never be converted and the world won for God. What is needed is an

uncontainable blessing that will sweep us down upon human want,

misery, ignorance and sin, and capture and change the whole world for

Christ. We do not want a force and energy that we must create and stir up,

but we want a heavenly power that will come down upon us like a cyclone

and sweep us along with it as the storm whirls the leaves in its mighty

course.

I am heartily sick of seeing the church “mark time,” as on dress parade. I

want to see an advance movement so solid, impetuous and overwhelming

that sinners will surrender everywhere, wickedness slink into its hiding

holes, devils fear and fly and all hell stand in utter dismay.

I am tired of beholding the horses and chariot of Zion trotting all day in the

shade of one tree—an appearance of going, and yet, in reality staying. I am

tired of seeing devils roosting on the axletrees, and some even on the seat

manipulating the reins. I want such a galvanic battery shock of divine glory

to come upon us, that every wrong thing will be knocked off the chariot,

and such a hurricane rush of joy and zeal and fire and heavenly power fall

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upon and sweep us onward that plotting devils and hating men will be left

astonished in a cloud of dust far behind, while we are disappearing in the

glorious light of the Millennium.

The disciples had this uncontainable blessing, and from the instant it came

upon them nothing could stop them, neither men nor devils, kings, armies,

stakes, dungeons, wild beasts, seas, mountains or deserts; on they flew,

running for God, telling the good news of salvation, warning of the wrath

to come, begging men to be saved, until, still running, they struck their foot

against their tombstone and fell flat in the grave, broke the bottom out of

that and woke up in glory. They had the uncontainable blessing.

The Wesleyan movement had it, and the combined force of church

authority, mob violence and public ridicule could do nothing before the

unlearned but fire-baptized lay preachers of John Wesley. So long as the

Methodist Church retained this blessing its advance was like the tread and

sweep of a victorious army.

Moreover, we have got to have this blessing if we are ever to take the

world for Christ. We can never win the day with an experience which we

have to coddle and manage, but we must have a steady, permanent blessing

that will manage us—something like steam in an engine, or, better still, like

the force behind the world.

When this blessing does descend on a church or congregation here or there,

there is immediately such a stir and commotion that a timid, unthinking,

conservative element in the church becomes alarmed and thinks everything

is going to pieces, when only sin, worldliness and formality are going to

pieces. There was a great deal of agitation in the apostolic church, and

stormy times in the Wesleyan revival, but God was in both movements.

The church had something that would not bend, truckle and go down

before earth and hell. It had the uncontainable blessing, rode every wave,

ran through every troop and leaped over every wall. Lord give it back to

us.

To the timid, fearful wing in the church, let me say that God will never

never send a steed of fire to be placed in the shafts of His chariot that

would break it to pieces. In other words, God will never send a blessings

that will rupture His church. It may offend and cast out some people who

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claim to be His church; but God’s real church is called the body of Christ

and that will never be hurt by the Baptism of Fire or the Uncontainable

Blessing.

Again we read the words, “There shall not be room enough to receive it.”

The picture suggested to the mind is evident. The overflowing fountain,

murmuring on its benevolent way, can readily be seen in the words.

I have seen fountains in our city squares playing into a large marble or iron

basin that would hold a hogshead of water. I noticed that when the basin

was full, the fountain did not cease to flow, but kept pouring in, and there

was nothing for the basin to do but to overflow, while the water streamed

forth and carried overground or underground in troughs or pipes went to

distant places, nourishing the roots of trees and grasses, slacking the thirst

of cattle and thousands of birds, and so becoming a blessing to vegetable

and animal life.

In like manner when a man receives the blessing I am talking about today,

he is first filled, but as God keeps pouring in more and more of His grace

and Spirit, there is nothing for the man to do but overflow. He like the city

fountain runs over and flows out. He in a manner radiates. He cannot keep

in what he has. It is driven forth by other measures of grace flowing into

him. So he becomes not only a daily but a constant benediction. Filled and

overflowing with good, he leaves a blessing wherever he goes. It is a book

here, a paper yonder, a hand-shake there, a pleasant smile and word in

another place, a flower to the invalid, or prayers by the side of the sick

and aged. The very grasp of his hand does good, his smile is contagious,

the spiritual brightness in his face clears the atmosphere of home and

social circle, and the firm ring of his voice and kindly look in his eyes is

like a tonic to drooping faith and an inspiration to Christian life and

performance.

Now multiply this man by five hundred, in other words a congregation.

Think of a whole church filled with such a blessing, and tell me whether it

will be a benediction to a town and city or not. Filled and overflowing they

will flow forth in a thousand acts of benevolent and spiritual work. Relief

for the human body and salvation for the humble soul will be in their

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creed. What missions will be started, what prayer meetings and Sunday

schools organized, what jails and hospitals visited, and what good of every

kind for mind, body and soul will be done willingly and rejoicingly.

God gave me a church where I had several hundred members in the

possession of this blessing. The result was that the congregation literally

flowed out on the city in deeds of mercy and salvation. The naked were

clothed, the poor were fed, strangers were visited, prisoners in the jail

were looked after, while the cottage prayer meetings in the houses, Gospel

meetings on the streets, and salvation power all the time at the church,

made Hell to stand astonished and grieved, while angels camped around

about and God kept sending down the Holy Spirit upon us in holy love

and approval. Do you see why the Devil does not want the church to

obtain this blessing?

In a meeting in a Southern State an old lady of about seventy-five years of

age obtained this blessing and at once undertook a missionary expedition

up one aisle and down another. In less than ten minutes she had shaken

hands with over sixty people and left a track of emotion behind her like a

steamboat leaves a wake of bubbles as it goes down the stream. The old

lady shook hands right and left, and as she did so, said: “God bless you,”

while her face fairly shone with holy light and love. The warm handshake,

the God bless you, backed up with the shining faces was more than the

people could stand, and I saw numbers of men wiping the tears from their

eyes. As I looked on the scene I said if the church had what this old lady

has, it would go out at once on missionary expeditions in every direction,

shake hands in a few months with Europe, Asia, Africa and America, stir

them all up with hearty God bless yous, and shining countenances, and

have the nations at the feet of Jesus in a little while.

In a California town two girls in the Presbyterian Church were sanctified

in a Methodist Mission. The instant they got the uncontainable blessing

they began to run over and flow forth. Satisfied with formal church

attendance and some perfunctory Sabbath-school work up to that time,

now they overflowed the regular banks and backed up to the hills. In a

word, they could not keep still and see men going down by scores from

their town into hell. So they rented a hall, filled it with chairs, procured an

organ and opened a meeting. Neither of them knew how to preach, but

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they could sing, and give their experience and cry some, and pray and

exhort a little. In a few days a gracious revival broke out and scores of

sinners were saved. At once they were summoned for trial before their

church, the charges against them being “Irregularity.” This was quite true.

They were very different from what they had been before. A mechanical,

perfunctory Christian life no longer satisfied them; they were burning up

with love for souls and were trying to keep men and women out of

perdition. They were doing what their fellow church members were not

doing, namely, saving souls; and so they both looked and were exceedingly

“irregular.” Fortunately for the girls, the Moderator of the church court or

assembly was both a religious and sensible man. As he propounded

numerous questions to the young women as to how and when and where

and why they did these things, light streamed into his mind, and he

secured their acquittal. His final remark to the assembly was noteworthy.

He said, “From all I can see these girls have received the baptism of the

Holy Ghost, and it would be a good thing if we all had it. “

Amen! Lord send upon the church the uncontainable, running over and

running out, blessing.

starving and perishing world.

Listen to the text, “That there may be meat in mine house.” This is the

Lord talking. He is telling His people how the starvation and death of the

nations can be prevented. If they will bring up the tithes, the material

substance and spiritual services, the affections and energies, the love and

devotion, the body, mind and soul, and consecrate all to God—then His

storehouse will be full, and all that a miserable, needy, sorrow-stricken,

sin-stained and despairing world wants will be found in the church of God.

The church in this figure is held up in the light of a great receptacle and

dispensing place, where everything needed by poor, heartbroken humanity

can be found, from material aid up to spiritual light, comfort and salvation.

If God’s people will do what Malachi exhorts to here, and God’s

answering blessing comes down, everything will be found in the church

that is needed and that should be there—the cordial welcome, the hearty

hand shake, the practical help, the burning love for souls, the unctuous

prayer, the melting hymn, the earnest exhortation, the sermon filled with

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spiritual food and salvation flowing about the church altars at every

service.

This is God’s plan, thus to fill His church with devoted, fire-baptized,

soul-loving men and women as so many servants and waiters; then to line

the rafters and load the shelves with all kinds of spiritual food; and after

that literally bombard the church with crowds of sinners and backsliders,

people undone in reputation and character, lives gone down under

appetite, pride and passion, hearts broken and despairing through sin and

sorrow; and have them not only met and welcomed but loved, cheered,

helped, lifted up and saved as fast as they come. This is God’s plan, and

this why He urges the uncontainable blessing on His people; because that

through its marvellous power this very thing will be done. But God’s

people are slow to see the heavenly design, and, neglecting the conditions

by which the wonderful work is to be brought about, the church is not the

spiritual feeding-place, nor the Power House that it should be. Some of us

have seen congregations stream out of handsome-looking cathedrals as well

as p lain-looking houses of worship, and the people did not look like they

had been fed. There seemed to have been no meat in God’s house that day.

Any one can see how this hurts Christ even more than the church. The

unsatisfied soul of the man of the world reasons thus: “I heard this was

the church of God; that it was a supernatural institution; that it had

supernatural influence; that the soul was fed and men were made to feel

the presence and power of the other world. But I have not so found it. It is

just like any other gathering to me. What they called the sermon was like a

speech or lecture, and I came out as I went in, nowise helped or made

better.” It is a distressing thought that this is not only the reasoning but

the experience of many who go into some of our churches. People who

may have gone in for help and light, left confirmed in doubt and

skepticism.

When I was a boy I read somewhere that three people went to church one

night each in peculiar trouble and hoping that help or deliverance would

come to them in some way. One was a man in great agony of mind

contemplating suicide, another was a woman who from poverty was

meditating flinging herself into a life of shame, a third was a boy who owed

a debt and not being able to pay it was being tempted to break into the

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cash drawer of his employer and take what he needed. It was a critical

hour for these three souls and they had come up to the house of God with

a vague hope of being helped or delivered in some way. What a time it

would have been for the choir to have sung Rock of Ages cleft for me, let

me hide myself in thee. But no it was a paid choir and they hemi-demisemi-

quavered and ran the rattlesnake note for half an hour, and brought

down no sweetness or unction upon the soul. It was a good time for a

prayer which would have lifted a despairing soul up to see the Fatherhood

of God and His delivering care, but instead the preacher for ten minutes

gave the Lord a great deal of information about what was going on in the

world; in fact it was no prayer. Then what an opportunity for the man of

God to have selected a text about God being with us in the “seventh

trouble,” about Jesus not letting us be tempted above that we are able to

bear, etc., etc. But instead the preacher took some curious passage is the

Old Testament and for three quarters of an hour talked about The Third

Geological Epoch of the World’s History. He fed the people on rocks for

nearly an hour. I remember the paragraph read that after the sermon the

man went out and leaping over the river bridge committed suicide, the

woman flung herself into a life of shame, and the boy went home to rob his

master, and in the act of breaking open the drawer was detected and sent

to a House of Correction.

The little story made a great impression on me, and when I became a

preacher it came back to me and I cried to God and asked Him please to

grant that in all my ministry I would never fail to help every broken heart

or troubled soul He might send to me for light, assistance or deliverance. If

the pulpit and church does not do that kind of work, of what use are they

to God.

Some years ago, before I received this blessing of which I am speaking to

you, I lost n little boy of eight years of age, named Guy. He was such a

deeply spiritual lad, such a John-like, Christlike boy that I have

perpetuated his memory in a chapter of one of my books called Pastoral

Sketches. He died a very horrible death of lockjaw, and while he was

struggling in the peculiar and awful convulsions of the disease for ten days,

it seemed that I died a thousand times while sitting or kneeling as a lonely

watcher by his bedside.

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The morning he died the sun seemed to go down, and the whole world

seemed black and empty to me. I did not have the Great Blessing at that

time, so that life became a burden to me. I fancied I could hear his voice

from the street where other little boys were playing. One of the last times

in life I saw him in the days of health, he was swinging on a wind waved

branch of a tree and cried out to me as he saw me leave the gate

“Good-bye Papa!.” I could hear that same loving call now wherever I

went, “Good-bye Papa.” In the pulpit, when I arose to preach, his sweet

little face would arise before me and I could scarcely proceed. When I came

into my house from my pastoral work about the city and would come

across the cap he once wore, the kite he flew, or some plaything his

precious hand had made sacred, an agony pierced my heart like a minnie

ball, and once or twice I fell as though I was shot through and through by a

missile of death.

In the midst of this darkness and sorrow came a telegram from my brother

a physician, in New York City, asking me to come on to see him. He had

heard of my sorrow. Most kindly and tenderly he tried to divert my mind

by taking me to different places. One trip was up the Hudson River to the

Catskill Mountains. But everywhere I saw the sweet boyish face, now

hidden under the sod of the hills of Vicksburg, and the burden seemed to

grow heavier. On Saturday we returned to New York City, and I picked

up the paper to see what the preachers were going to preach about next

day that I might know where to go. I wish I could recall the topics that for

a column and a half literally sickened my eyes and heart. There were

political subjects, scientific topics, literary treatises. It was amazing to see

how the Gospel had been skipped and Jesus left out. So as I read on I kept

saying: “#No No! don’t want that or that—or that.” Some subjects were

upon startling occurrences that had recently taken place. Some preachers

pro posed to answer certain Questions of the Day, and still my heart said:

“No, I don’t want questions of the day answered, I am already sick of

them. There are heart questions, and providential problems and mysteries

about the other world that I want solved. Lord I want this burden to be

taken away, I want peace and rest.” So my eye kept glancing down the

column until at last I read these words: “On tomorrow at the Washington

Square Methodist Church, the Rev. J. R. T will preach at 11 a. m. and 7:30

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p. m. His morning subject will be “ Soul Rest.” At once my heart cried

out: “Yes Lord, that is what I want, soul rest.”

On the next morning I sat in the center of the church and gave most faithful

attention to the preacher. He appeared to be about forty years of age.

There were lines in his face that showed he had known great suffering, but

there was a light among the lines which revealed he had come through

victoriously. His manner was impressive, his voice tender and solemn. He

took for his text the words of David, “Return unto thy rest O my soul.”

For forty-five minutes he opened up the verse and from it poured a stream

of inspired thought that was like heavenly oil to the wounded heart. Jesus

was held up and brought near. Jesus our best friend, Jesus the lover of our

souls, Jesus with us in the storm and in the dark, Jesus making everything

work together for our good, Jesus explaining to us in heaven some of the

dark, inscrutable things that took place on earth. I saw my soul like a poor

storm-tossed bird far out over the deep, and I could see Jesus stretching

out his arms for it. I could see it beating its tired way back to Him, feel His

hand taking in the wearied flutterer and placing it in His bosom. I never

wept so much under a sermon in my life before. The tears came not in

drops, but flowed in streams, while the preacher with heaven directed

hand poured the oil upon the spirit.

When the service was over I walked forward to the altar and took him by

the hand and with a broken voice told him he would never know in this life

how much good he had done a heartbroken preacher of the Gospel. As I

walked out on the street I begged God to grant that whenever I stood up to

preach I would thus bless and bind up the broken hearts He would send to

my church. Even then I began to see what the mission of the church was,

and if we are not encouraging the discouraged, uplifting the fallen and

saving the lost, we are of no earthly use to God.

I held a meeting in a large Northern city two winters ago; and this

occurrence took place a couple of weeks before my arrival. A young

woman was engaged to be married when her betrothed suddenly died. A

strange desperate feeling came over her and in that reckless spirit she

entered upon a life of sin and shame. At once remorse set in, and feeling

that life was unbearable she determined one night to drown herself in the

river that flowed through the city. On the way to the bridge from which

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she intended casting herself, she passed the church where I afterwards held

my meeting. It was lighted up and the sound of singing came out upon the

night air. She concluded to go in and hear one hymn before she took her

life. She entered and sat in the last seat. The people were all filled with the

Spirit, it was a Holiness Church, and one sweet hymn followed another.

She had heard four hymns when the speaker of the evening arose suddenly

and said, “I will speak a few minutes on the words of Jesus ‘Come unto

me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’”

Then followed an earnest, tender, unctuous talk of fifteen minutes, when

he concluded by saying, “If any sin sick soul, or and burdened heart would

like to come to Jesus tonight, let them draw near at once to this altar that

we may pray for them. “ At once the girl rushed forward, fell at the altar,

and in less than ten minutes was soundly saved. Several weeks later I

opened my meeting in this church of which she was now a member. When

she heard of the deeper experience of sanctification, the greater blessing I

have been talking about, she at once sought it, and in a few days found it.

Several times after that I heard her testify, and as I looked at her

transfigured face, the perfectly angelic expression upon it, and thought that

only a few weeks before she was on her way to the river to drown herself,

I blessed God for a church that had the power to stop her mad career and

turn her steps from an endless hell to an everlasting Heaven. And I saw

once again why God wants to fill His church everywhere with a blessing

that will make it a soul saving institution, cheating hell out of a weeping

and wailing population, and crowding the streets of Heaven with a

multitude that cannot be numbered, plucked from the walks and ways of

sin everywhere, and now white robed and shining-faced to glorify God in

the skies forever.

Why is it that God’s people are so uneasy and suspicious about this blessing. It

is not an enemy to the church, but the friend. It is not to strip and rend, but

to fill it up with redeemed people and bind all its interests together. It has not

come to assail the church, but to show her the way of capturing the world for

Christ. It is not to be a burden and affliction, but is the very “power” which

Christ promised should come down, and which on coming down makes one

man to chase a thousand, two to put ten thousand to flight, makes the church

in a word victorious and irresistible at every point and place, while to the eyes

of the world it looks “Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an

army with banners.”

Lord send down upon us and into us the Uncontainable Blessing.

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CHAPTER 8

ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION

“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 word regenerate means to “beget,” “renew” and “renovate.” It is, in

the scriptural sense, to be born again, or born of God. The word sanctify,

which is the prominent one in the text, means to “make pure,” “make

holy” and “set apart.” You see at once that the words regenerate and

sanctify are not synonyms, and that the latter is much stronger than the

former. It is also very noticeable that Paul was not speaking of the first,

but of the last, and was evidently deeply concerned that the Thessalonians

might come into an experience which he calls being wholly sanctified.

This grace must undoubtedly be very important, as we find certain

impressive facts and statements made relative to it in the Word of God.

One is that Christ prayed for our sanctification. This appears in the

seventeenth chapter of John; for, after supplicating thus for the disciples,

the Savior adds, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which

shall believe on Me through their word.” It is through their word that the

Gospel has been sent down to us

Again, Christ died for our sanctification. Many people do not seem to

know this. They have looked on the death of Christ as a means of escape,

from hell, when the Scripture distinctly declares that “He suffered outside

the gate that He might sanctify the people.” Remember that sanctify does

not mean regenerate.

Still again, Christ’s work is to that end. He has a work. Paul declares it in

Ephesians, where he says that Christ loved the church and gave Himself

for it that He might sanctify it. The Revised Version here will make you

open your eyes, for it says “that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it

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with the washing of the water of the Word.” Here are the two works of

grace side by side.

Still further, I notice that God wills our sanctification. Having once read

that, how can a Christian ever be satisfied and settle down in any state of

grace that is less and falls short of what is in the plain word? It seems to

me that condemnation is bound to overtake one who refuses to walk in

increasing light and will not possess that which God wants him to have.

I once read of a man who claimed to be God’s friend and follower, and yet

was neglectful of certain Divine commandments. One evening on coming

into his wife’s room he saw her open Bible lying on her work-table. She

had been reading it on her knees, and hearing him had hastily retired to hide

the emotion that was uppermost in her heart as she thought of his course.

The man glanced at the Bible and saw a single tear that had dropped from

her eyes upon the page. It was resting on this verse in John’s first epistle

and second chapter: “He that saith I know Him and keepeth not His

commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him.” The tear and the

verse together went like an arrow to his heart and did the work that

aroused and saved him. It would be well for some today who hear me if

they could see the tears of angels on the verse, “This is the will of God,

even your sanctification,” and ask themselves how they must appear to

God, and the world itself, when saying they love God, and yet heeding not

what is t he declared will of God, and neglecting or refusing to obtain that

for which Christ prayed and worked, and even died that they might have.

The text I have selected is full of information concerning this great work of

grace. And it is remarkable that the very facts it brings out are the very

points that are so objectionable and irritating to a large class of people in

the church today. Drop these features and they will join hands with us and

agree on the doctrine of sanctification. But to discard these same points is

to rob it of its distinctiveness, confound it with growth is grace, make it a

were elongation of regeneration, and thereby strip the blessing of its real

spirit essence and peculiar glory. Let us see what this verse teaches:

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This is the direct statement of the text: “The very God of peace sanctify

you wholly.” How can the most expert reasoner escape from this

unmistakable declaration that God sanctifies.

I have noticed that there is a disposition in the world to deny every work

of God. Herein is seen not only the unbelief of men, but the same spirit

that swept Christ from the earth. To deny God’s works is to get rid of

God. And we have only to open our eyes and ears to see that every work

of God is denied, not by the same class of people, but by different bodies;

and the summing up of all these various negations amounts to the total

rejection of God.

I find that the Bible attributes, among others, five general works to God,

viz., creation, resurrection, regeneration, witness of the Spirit and

sanctification. Is it not remarkable that every one of these are disputed and

denied by men? Scientists would displace creation as all act of God, by

evolution—a mere blind and unintelligent process. A large class of religious

people deny the resurrection. Here two Divine works are swept away. A

third body laugh at experimental religion, and substitute church

membership for regeneration. Three works gone. A fourth class insists that

there is and can be no direct testimony of the Spirit of God to our

salvation; that we can only arrive at such a conclusion by a system of

deductions, and these deductions are drawn from an observation of certain

changes in our lives. The fourth work is gone. A fifth party deride the idea

of sanctification being a distinct work of grace in the soul, and confound

the word with maturity and growth in grace. I have often wondered if the

people who do this, and oftentime they are Christians, are aware that they

are in ghastly union with an unbelieving world in robbing God of His

glory. For so it comes to pass, by open enemies and avowed friends, that

every work of God is denied and swept away. Only review the list,

creation, resurrection, regeneration, witness of the Spirit and sanctification,

and behold every one is jeered at, doubted and denied. How do you like

your fellowship, my brother, as you find yourself in league to defraud the

Almighty of His honor?

Thank God the Bible is clear in these matters, and the same Book which

says that God created the heavens and the earth declares that God

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sanctifies the soul wholly. It is vain for persons to try to escape this direct

statement by saying that the Scripture tells us to “sanctify the Lord God

in our heart.” This is true; we are to have high, holy, elevated thoughts of

God, and this it is to sanctify Him in our hearts; and until we do this He

will never sanctify our souls; but still the verse remains unmoved—”The

very God of peace sanctify you wholly.”

It is also vain to say that the Bible tells us to sanctify ourselves; that this

was the command to the children of Israel, “Sanctify yourselves.” This is

also true. We have never denied that there is a double cleansing or

sanctification, one human and the other divine. The human must always

precede the divine. A man must cleanse or sanctify himself before God

will ever sanctify him wholly. We are to “cleanse ourselves from all

filthiness” in order to “perfect holiness.” So the text stands like a mighty

unconquered fort after all this shelling and crossfiring—it is the God of

peace who sanctifies us wholly.

Here comes fresh trouble to many. If we would only say that

sanctification is a ripening of the Christian graces, a further development

of the Christian life, then all would be well with Jacob and the camp of

Israel would remain peaceful and contented. But to call it a second work, a

work subsequent to and different from regeneration, here is where the

excitement is again aroused.

I have often wondered at the irritability manifested by good people toward

the teaching of a second work of grace. One would suppose that the first

had not been so delightful that they desired another. Whereas in my own

case the first blessing was so sweet that I always wanted God to touch me

again. Now when in addition to this it is demonstrated both by the heart

and the Bible that there is need for a second work, then it certainly seems

that every child of God would pant to receive that work. This being the

case, the antagonism felt and expressed toward this subsequent grace is

quite remarkable. But antagonism or not, the fact remains that such a work

is for us.

Moreover, every view taken or theory enunciated of the blessing of entire

sanctification makes it a second work. For instance, if purity comes in

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Purgatory, there the second work is seen; if at death, the fact of

subsequency is clear then. If it comes as a result of growth or

development, still it is a second blessing. Even the Zinzendorfian teaching,

which locates it at conversion, will, if examined, reveal the dual grace. The

words “I got it at conversion” are most significant. Do you not see that

“it” and “conversion” are different words, and that the man says that

when he was regenerated he got something else different from

regenerated—that he “got it when he was converted. “

When you come to the true theory as taught in the Bible and Methodist

theology, sanctification is plainly upheld as a second work.

The first proof is seen remarkably in the epistle from which the text is

taken. Let any one of you read the first chapter of first Thessalonians and

note what Paul says about their religious condition, their faith, their joy in

the Holy Ghost, their being an example to believers, etc., and then turn to

the text and hear him pray that God would sanctify them wholly to see a

second work taught, as clearly as words can make it.

A second proof is in the term “God of peace.” Who is the God of peace?

Romans, fifth chapter and first verse, will answer that, “Being justified by

faith we have peace with God.” God is not a God of peace to a sinner, but

to a justified man. Now then, says Paul, may the God of peace, your

justifying God, sanctify you wholly.

A third proof is seen in the word “sanctify.” This, as previously said,

means to “make pure, make holy and to set apart.” Regeneration means to

“beget, reproduce, born again,” etc. But common sense tells us that the

creature must be born before it can be “set apart.” So the word sanctify

itself contains the evidence of a second work.

A fourth proof is found in many Bible passages which my time today will

not allow me even to quote, much less expound.

A fifth proof is in human witnesses. They are today found all over the

land, and are springing up by thousands and tens of thousands. I meet

them wherever I go. No matter in what country or city I find them they

agree marvelously on these very points which awaken such a stir of

resentment, that the work is Divine and that it is wrought subsequent to

regeneration!

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It is true there are many people in the church who deny the reality of such

a blessing, saying, among other things, that they never had it. But what

does this prove? Simply that they themselves have not the blessing. Can

what they say have weight? Are they true witnesses when we come to

look at the matter? A witness in the court is a man who testifies to what

he knows, not to what he does not know. Suppose a boy should declare

that he saw one man murder another, and a hundred men should swear that

it did not occur because they did not see it, do we not all know that the

testimony of the lad would outweigh the statements of the one hundred

men. He was present, saw and knew of the transaction, while they were

not there, and so could not properly testify. In this instance one positive

declaration of fact outweighs a thousand denials. So in regard to this

experience, we have those who say they have the blessing. What, then,

does the adverse testimony of laymen and preachers amount to against the

doctrine when all they say, when summed up, is that they have not got it?

They, in a word, were not on the ground. We were; and, thank God, saw

the “Old Man” killed and buried. In other words, we believed, received,

and are today filled and blessed with the joy, liberty and power of the

second work of grace.

Some one told a devout old colored woman that a very smart and eloquent

lecturer had just said in one of his harangues that there was no Holy

Ghost. The person who told her watched her countenance closely as he

asked: “Now, Aunt Maria, when such an intellectual and prominent man

says there is no Holy Ghost in the world, what are you going to do about

it?” The aged head was lifted in answer, the trembling hand was raised, and

with earnest tones she said: “He means to say there’s no Holy Ghost as

he knows on!” That answer was a Waterloo one and cleared the field. And

so in like manner when we hear of people denying the fact of a second

work of grace, we say: “Yes, there is none that they ‘knows on’—but

there is one just the same.”

The argument is made against us that God does everything in one work;

but it is overwhelmingly contradicted by the formation of the world with

six different touches of power, the creation of the human family in two

distinct works, the two covenants given to men, the blessing of Pentecost

coming on saved men and women, and by other instances of divine

procedure that I have not time to mention.

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According to reason and revelation, and in agreement with other Divine

works, and in perfect harmony with human experience, sanctification is a

second work.

This third fact likewise arouses the displeasure and opposition of a

number of God’s people. Make the blessing a gradual growth or an endless

series of developments, and such a teacher will be held in high

ecclesiastical favor, and there will be “room in the inn” for him and his

teaching. It is the statement of its instantaneousness that seems to

exasperate some spirits.

The proof of the immediate nature of the blessing is seen in the aorist

tense in which we find the word sanctify in the text. Scholars have told us

that the aorist tense will not allow the thought of gradualism or

development. It stands for a work accomplished once for all.

Another proof is seen in God’s will. When could He will our sanctification

but now, in the present moments To say that He wills it a year, month, or

even a day hence, would be to destroy the moral character of God. It

would be to say that God did not will us to be holy now and was satisfied

with unsanctified lives. We cannot believe this a moment. We say “now”

is God’s time, and if He wills us to be sanctified now then He has a way

to do it now.

A third proof is seen in God’s commands. Turn to the Bible and see if the

word of injunction there does not refer to the present; “Be ye holy!” The

call, command and promise throughout the Scriptures agree as to an

instantaneous yielding and immediate experience.

If you confound sanctification with growth in grace, the idea of gradualism

becomes natural and imperative; but when we see that sanctification is a

Divine work and not a soul process, the impossibility of the development

theory becomes at once manifest. It is an instantaneous Divine cleansing,

and as such we are commanded to seek and possess it.

God’s commands do not provide for procrastination and willful delays.

They do not read that way, and if we do so treat them it is at our peril.

There is no command for a gradual honesty. Think if you can of a man

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becoming honest after a gradual fashion; that today he steals a horse, the

next day a cow, then a calf, then a hog, then a turkey (oh, how he is

improving!), then a chicken, and finally an egg. Would any one call that

improvement? Would not a child say that the man was as big a thief when

he took the egg as when he stole the horse? God knows of no such

honesty, and has no such command. Instead of that are the ringing words,

“Let him that stole steal no more.” An instantaneous honesty! So we are

not called and commanded to a gradual and graduated holiness, but to an

instant and entire destruction of sin and perfect filling of the soul with the

Holy Ghost.

A fourth proof is beheld in the power of God. Ask yourselves how long it

would take God to sanctify the soul. He who turned ten thousand devils

out of a man, changed the water into wine with a word, and stilled the

storm and raised the dead in an instant, how long would it take Him to cast

out inbred sin, purify the soul and bring in the abiding presence of the

Comforter? Look at God’s power and see the answer to the problem. Ask

the question if He does not want us to be sanctified now, and get still

another answer. Put the supposition before your mind that God can do it

and will not do it, or that God wants to do it and cannot do it, and either

one will literally drive you to the true conclusion that God wants to do the

work, can do it, and is able, willing and ready to do it now.

This is just what thousands and tens of thousands are saying over our

broad country. They sought, prayed, believed, expected and received the

blessing instantaneously. There is no other way of obtaining it, and so that

is the reason they sought it in that way and found it after that manner.

The statement of this proposition arouses antagonism and denial just as

the other points we have made have been seen to do. The desire with

many is to regard sanctification as simply a deepening of regeneration.

This of course destroys the individuality of the work, and as a

consequence would prevent us from saying that we have a secret of the

Lord, an experience that is not known and enjoyed by all the rest of God’s

people. Such a claim is felt to be boastful and presumptuous. “Master, in

saying these things, thou speakest against us.” In other words such a claim

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is supposed to reflect on other Christians. It is needless to say that this is

not intended. It is a natural outcry of joy. It is the thankful testimony to a

resident inner cleanliness and happiness.

If sanctification is a Divine work, different from and subsequent to

regeneration, then it is bound to bring a peculiar experience. Common

sense would tell us that, and the experience of a vast, multitude confirms

the fact. The very expressions in the text show that sanctification ushers

in a new experience to the soul. For instance the words “sanctify you

wholly,” declare a distinct plane or state of religious life, if any

dependence is to be placed upon words, and especially God inspired

words. All admit that there is a measure of sanctification in regeneration.

This is Methodist teaching. All that possess that partial sanctification in

converted life insist that they have an experience, and who of us will deny

it. But the point I make is, that if partial sanctification brings an

experience, then it should follow that when we are sanctified wholly there

must be not only an experience as a consequence, but a different

experience. Cartwright said that he was sanctified in spots. But suppose

that these spot s should run into each other and cover the whole surface,

then there must be an experience tallying and agreeing with this changed

state of things. Let men reason and worry as they will about the difference

existing between “kind” and “degree,” the fact remains that there is a

marvellous dissimilarity between love, peace and joy struggling in the soul

for foothold and existence, and perfect love, joy and peace abiding

unbrokenly in the spirit. This is an experience in itself, and different from

the former, as the happy heart and shining face will, and do testify.

The words “preserved blameless” also prove a different religious life and

experience. There is no promise in the Bible that we will live such lives

that all men will approve and commend. The Savior Himself did not please

many. But there is a spiritual condition obtainable, in which we

continually please God, and feel no condemnation. We are preserved

blameless and kept by the power of God from day to day, from hour to

hour, even unto or against the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is an

experience in itself, and when we remember our former Christian life, in

which there was so much of stumbling, so much that was to be blamed,

and when we did not feel kept but left to struggle on in conscious

weakness and solitude, more than ever we see it is an experience.

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A lady was seeking this blessing in San Francisco. Just as she was about to

receive it, she told me that the Savior seemed to whisper to her, “How

long will you let me keep you?” She said that her unbelief made her shrink

back from saying “For all time” and her utmost stretch of faith could only

say “For six months.” At once she said the presence of Christ departed,

and she was left in horrible darkness. For days she mourned Christ’s

absence and begged Him to return. One day she was brought face to face

with the same experience and question, “How long will you trust me to

keep you?” and with a glad exclamation, she cried “Forever!” and instantly

the fire fell and she entered into rest.

He that is thus sweetly strangely kept from moment to moment, and from

day to day, is bound to say it is an experience. The utter absence of worry

and storm, the elimination of fret and fault-finding, the delicious sense of

heart repose in the constant inward presence of Christ is an experience,

there is no other name for it.

Here is still another fact connected with the blessing that seems productive

of agitation, dissension and firm denial with quite a number of good

people. It seems that every feature of this beautiful grace of God arouses

antagonism somewhere. But we cannot afford to withdraw a single one of

them, no matter how objectionable they may be to certain individuals. To

do so is to rob the blessing of its glory and destroy its individuality.

So in spite of doubt and denial here and there, we affirm with great

gladness, that the Holy Ghost witnesses to the blessing of sanctification.

This truth is imbedded in the text, for the reason that the Spirit witnesses

to every work of God; here is a work, and there must be and is a witness.

He who can only recognize the testimony of the Holy Spirit to the fact of

sonship, has evidently not thought much on the subject, nor even read the

Bible as carefully as he should. So far from one testimony, it is clear that

the Holy Ghost witnesses to every state in the spiritual life whether the

man be good or evil.

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The Holy Ghost witnesses to a man that he is a sinner, and it is this divine

whisper that makes him go down before God and men, with trembling

knees and hand-smitten breast.

The Holy Ghost witnesses to pardon and sonship. No one hears an

audible voice, but the testimony is given within somehow, and the forgiven

one leaps from his knees or from the altar, laughing, crying, shouting or

declaring that he is saved.

The Holy Ghost testifies to a call to the ministry. He witnesses to the

heart that God wants you to preach the gospel. No one hears any voice,

no one else in the family has the disturbing and vivid impression that is

upon you, and that will not let you rest until you say

“Yes.” Then follows a flood of sweetest peace and ecstasy.

The Holy Ghost witnesses to inbred sin. In fact no one can show it to you

but the Spirit of God. I may preach about it but it takes the Holy Ghost to

show it in all its sickening shape and movements. When He reveals it and

bears witness to it, down you go in an agony like Isaiah, feeling or saying

“Woe is me—for I am undone.” No more sermons are needed to convince.

The fluent speech is over, the soul is found in the dust, for God the Holy

Ghost has spoken. What can man do and say when God speaks?

The Holy Ghost testifies to the destruction and eradication of inbred sin,

in other words, He witnesses to sanctification. How He does it is not in

the province or power of man to say. It cannot be explained. The very

thought how a spirit can speak to a spirit and make that spirit know a

thing without the use of audible language, fills the mind with a profound

bewilderment. Mr. Wesley says, concerning the witness of the Spirit, that

it is “an inward impression wrought in the soul.” Does that clear up the

matter? How can a spirit make an impression upon a spirit that shall be

intelligible and understood where not a word is spoken. The matter simply

cannot be explained, but thank God the fact remains and is daily

experienced. The Holy Ghost witnesses to sanctification as He does to

regeneration, and the instant he does the man quits seeking what he had

found and proclaims with tears, smiles and shouts, “I have it.” Now he is

like a rock! Nothing can shake or move him. He knows he has the blessing.

The Spirit told him so.

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Our fraternal messenger to the General Conference of the Methodist

Episcopal Church, said to that body in his address, that there was no

direct witness or testimony of the Spirit of God to the state or fact of

sanctification. Many of us read this remarkable statement with smiles,

when we remembered how St. Paul differed with the brother. In Hebrews,

one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof

the Holy Ghost is also a witness to us”!

So according to experience, and above all according to the Word of God,

the Spirit witnesses to the grace and blessing of sanctification. Like the

name in the white stone, no one knoweth it saving he that receiveth it. He

that has not the divine whisper will continue to speculate, doubt and deny;

we are not surprised at his uncertainty. But Oh! how certain we are who

have received the blessing and have heard and still hear the voice of God

testifying to the work he has done in the soul.

The outward demonstration may have been different; for some shout,

some laugh, others weep and still others do nothing but sit down and

luxuriate voicelessly in a measureless and indescribable calm. The inward

reception of the blessing may differ to the consciousness of those receiving

it. To one it is like a tempest of fire, to another like a deluge of honey. One

is tossed on billows of glory, while another is brought into port, and

anchored so deep in the love and grace of God, that there seems but one

word that describes the new life, and that word—stillness stillness

stillness.

Yes the Holy Ghost witnesses to the blessing of sanctification. So I say to

all, and beg all, do not think of stopping until you receive it; do not dream

of resting in anything but the vivid, thrilling testimony of the Holy Ghost

Himself that you are sanctified. When that comes it is wonderful how

unshaken and unshakable we are. It is delightful to feel how ridicule and

opposition alike fall harmless before us. Great waves may be rolled upon

us from the world and hell, but with the witness in the soul, we come

safely through it all and are left towering Gibralter-like far above the spent

and broken forces at our feet.

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It is blessed to see in so many places in the Bible how the way is laid

down for us to sweep into the gracious experience. The Savior in two

places in the gospel marks the route. Paul shows it in Romans and

Hebrews, while James in his Epistle also reveals it twice. So again and

again I have been thrilled to see the steps laid down by prophet, apostle

and evangelist, and to notice that always, in spite of verbal dissimilarity or

difference in figure used, how they all agree on consecration and faith.

These essentials are never left out, but are always found in every

presentation of the way we are to tread, if we would come “into the

holiest.”

Glancing upward from the text at the verses immediately preceding, I see

that if they are faithfully carried out in their teaching, they will lead us into

the blessing, just as they lead directly to the text. Suppose we start with

If any one should ask me today how to obtain the blessing of

sanctification, I would reply, commence praying at once. If you have been

talking and arguing, all the greater need to go to praying. Break off talking

to men and go to talking with God. He knows all about it, while some men

know a little and a great many know nothing about it. Talk with God. Get

on your knees and beg for light. Remember that God teaches us through

our communings with Him. I would also say, keep on praying; do not

stop; let nothing discourage you. If there is no answer from the skies at

first, then all the greater need to “pray without ceasing.” It is the

importunate prayer that makes such headway here. The little everyday

prayer on which you have grown cold and backslidden will not do. The

regulation prayer you have used in the pulpit, prayer-meeting, or family

circles will not do. You must get up a new prayer, if it is composed

entirely of groans, sobs, cries and ejaculations of “Lord, give me light”—

”have mercy,” etc.

I knew a young man who got on his knees one morning and prayed

steadily on to dinner time. The congregation left him but he remained at

the altar. In the afternoon the people returned to have a prayer-meeting,

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and found him still praying. They remained an hour and left him the

second time to the silence and shadows of the church. But he clung to the

altar, and stuck to his knees, and kept calling on God, and at five o’clock,

after six hours’ prayer, the fire fell and he obtained the blessing.

Remember that the Holy Spirit wants to lead you into this experience. If

you let Him He will do so? He has guided many thousands into it, and is

leading many more. He will bring you in if you will not resist His holy

motions and quench the blessed light He introduces.

As Mary told the servants at Cana, so I tell you: “Whatsoever he saith

unto you do it.” If He brings something up in the mind attend to it. Say

“Yes” to Him no matter what He bids you do. If you will thus follow and

be led by Him, He will bring you into the blessing.

This includes preaching, teaching and testifying. God will send you

sufficient to give you all the light you need. Listen and reflect on what you

hear about sanctification. Do not be faultfinding, critical, and above all

hypercritical. Do not despise a testimony because it is simply given, or is

uttered by a plain-looking person. Do not make the blunder of thinking

that what is said is untrue because it is beyond you and your experience.

Whatever you do, do not despise and condemn the prophesyings of God’s

people who have swept ahead of you in divine things. It will only harden

your heart and you will have to take it all back before you get the blessing.

Oh! the light and wisdom I have seen and heard in these fervent utterances

of God’s sanctified children.

You and I are not bound to swallow down and practice all that we hear

even from good people. Prove all things. See if it is reasonable. Test it with

the word of God. Reject what is foolish, fanatical, nonsensical and

nonessential, and hold fast that which is good.

This verse alone shows that justified people are being addressed. If sinners

were being talked to we would have to say, “Give up evil itself,” but here

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it is the appearance of evil. The holy life will not allow even the

questionable and suspicious condition or circumstance.

In a word we are to live the sanctified life before we get the sanctified

blessing. This very thing is to prove to God the fact and measure of our

desire for the grace. I am to mortify “The Old Man” on the outside, before

God will kill him on the inside. I am to sweep down every spider-web

before God will kill the spider. We are to cleanse ourselves from all

filthiness of flesh and spirit if we would perfect holiness. We are to

abstain from all appearance of evil if we would see the glory of God.

Some would think such a life of abstaining from the very appearance of sin

would be sufficient; that this is holiness itself. Not so. Listen to the word.

It is after we have abstained from all appearance of evil that the text is

uttered, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.” It is when we

do the former that God does the latter. We must give up not only all evil,

but the appearance of evil and then the God of peace will sanctify us.

There is no other way of obtaining the blessing. It is the way I got it, and

the way others got it. I prayed without ceasing, quenched not the Spirit,

despised not the prophesying of God’s people, proved all things, held fast

to that which was good whether said or done, and abstained from all

appearance of evil with the eyes of the soul looking steadfastly to Jesus. It

was then! Glory to God! Hallelujah! O happy day! that God sanctified

me. The fire fell, the Spirit witnessed, and I laughed, wept, shouted and

praised God all over the room. I knew I was sanctified; my neighbors

knew it; the devils in hell knew it; the angels of heaven knew it; and an

increasing number of people have been knowing it every year, and please

God a still greater number shall know it as the days roll on until breath

shall fail, heart cease to beat, the tongue moulder in the dust, while the

happy soul in some bright, faraway world shall find some new way and

method of worshipping, witnessing, adoring and praising the Triune God

of my salvation.

We hear a number complaining that they cannot obtain the great blessing.

In many of these instances I find mental reservations, a part of the value

withheld for the pearl of great price.

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Some say they do not know what is the matter with them. But there is

something the matter or the Holy fire would fall. He who takes the steps

we have laid down is bound to receive the blessing of sanctification.

Nothing else can happen, for God is true, and never fails or disappoints

the honest wholehearted seeker. Hallelujah!

Be sure of it that the thing which keeps coming up in your mind is the

thing God wants you to do, and which if you will not do, will prevent the

Baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire from coming upon you. Do it! Rise

up today in God’s name and say I will do it, and He who is called

“Faithful” will open the windows of heaven above you and pour you out

such a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. It will be

the blessing you have wanted all your life: The Baptism of Jesus; the

sanctification of your soul; the great soul filling, heart-satisfying blessing

which God wills us to have, and which we must have in order to see the

Lord.

I heard a minister of the gospel once say that he knew a gentleman of

wealth who began to lose his health. On consulting with one of the most

distinguished physicians in a large city, he was informed that he had a

tumor, and that the only hope for his life was to undergo a surgical

operation. He was also told that there was not more than one chance in a

hundred for his recovery if he submitted to the operation. Here, indeed,

was a dreary alternative. Death certain unless the knife was used; and

ninety-nine chances to one against his living if it was used. He took a week

reflect, and very serious were his reflections. But he was a man of nerve

and will force. One day he quietly made his will and divided his estate. He

arranged everything in regard to property and home for the comfort of his

wife. He wrote letters of business and bade farewell to his friends,

overlooked nothing along every line that should have been attended to,

secured the services of three superior surgeons, and appointed the day

himself f or the operation to take place. The morning arrived and the

surgeons with it. Going into the back parlor the husband had his last

interview with his wife. It was tender and solemn. They knelt down and

prayed together. He arose kissed her good-bye, walked into the front room

where he had ordered a table to be brought, stripped himself of his

clothing, laid himself on the table, folded his arms and looking into the

eyes of the chief surgeon said—”Proceed.” An anesthetic was

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administered, the man went off, he knew not how long into

unconsciousness. It was three hours! At last with gasps he came back, and

opening his eyes, he saw the smiling face of the surgeon, who said, “The

operation is over, and it is a perfect success.”

Just so some of you feel that you are not well spiritually. It has been a

struggle to keep up, and do and be what you would like to do and become.

You have felt there is an inward trouble that accounts for you feeble

spiritual health and varying religious life. The Bible tells you that the

malady is inbred sin. If you do not have it removed you may yet lose your

soul. It has already brought you trouble, it may yet bring you a great deal

more. I beg you to employ Jesus to take it out. He can do so. Make your

will, say good-bye to everything and everybody, stretch yourself on this

altar, and looking up to Jesus, the great physician, say, “Proceed.”

It will seem to you that you have had an anesthetic administered, and you

will go off. You may forget everything, see nothing and hear nothing for

awhile. You may be down in the straw or sawdust or on the floor for

minutes or hours, and know nothing of what is going on. But by and by a

great surge of life and joy will rush into you, you will open your eyes and

look up, and Lo! the face of Christ will be beaming on you, and He will

say to your astonished, thrilled and delighted soul, “The operation is over,

and it is a perfect success.” In a word, inbred sin will be gone, and you will

be sanctified.

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CHAPTER 9

THE FULL JOY

The world is famous for its misconceptions and general ignorance of the

Divine Being. We hear almost daily, passing current, and rarely

contradicted, things attributed to God that rob Him of all pity and mercy,

and give Him a ferocity and undying spirit of vengeance that can not find a

shadow of confirmation in the Bible or in these heaven-blessed lives of

ours. It is against these misrepresentations, these perversions of the

character of God, that infidels rave today, and think they assail the Lord of

the Bible, when they are striking at an awful caricature of the Almighty.

In like manner men fall into mistakes about the Savior. The popular view

is that He was a very sad man, a man of sorrows above all other men; that

while He was seen to weep, no one ever saw Him smile or heard Him

laugh. All the pictures I ever beheld of the Savior, and especially the old

paintings I viewed of Him in the art galleries of Europe, represented Him

with face melancholy, tears and blood-stained, or convulsed with agony.

It is well for us to remember that if Christ had sorrows, they were not for

Himself. What had His pure heart and beautiful holy life done that He

should grieve? If He was sad it was not about Himself, and if He wept,

behold! it was over Jerusalem.

It is also well to bear in mind that if Christ bore habitually the melancholy,

agonized look that painters give Him, that His invitations to and sermons

on Rest would have been utter failures. Think of a being with a confirmed

look of grief, saying, “Come, and I will give you rest.” Who believes that

the little children would have stretched out their arms and nestled in His

breast if He had the gloomy countenance with which tradition invests

Him.

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With these opening remarks, I now call your attention to the blessed facts

I find in the text. And first—

Do you remember with what strains of triumph and gladness Prophecy

spoke of the coming of Christ into the world? Read anywhere you will in

the Old Testament, and whether it is Jacob, Balaam, David or Isaiah

speaking, all had the words and accent of a great joy in telling of the advent

of the Messiah.

Then what joy the night of His birth. Angels swung low in the sky over

the fields of Bethlehem, and the world, as well as the astonished

shepherds, has never forgotten the gladness of their song of annunciation,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace good will toward men.”

Concerning His Kingdom, the Bible says it is one of “Righteousness,

peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

Concerning Himself the word of God declares, “Thou hast anointed Him

with the oil of gladness above all His fellows.”

In confirmation of the fact of His own personal happiness and soul

buoyancy, Christ says here in the text, “My Joy.”

So He had a joy. This is not the only time He refers to it, and there were

times it so blazed out of His face that men wondered. About His joy I

notice several things.

One was that it was of a profoundly deep nature. It was not the noisy

brawl of the shallow brook, but would be better pictured by a silent,

outspread ocean; I love demonstrativeness in the religious life, but I have

seen souls so full of holy joy that the very weight of the glory produced

stillness.

Again, this joy appeared in the unlikeliest times. It was when one would

think that surrounding unbelief and apparent defeat would bring occasion

for sorrow, that suddenly the joy of Christ would came forth greater than

ever. Notably was this seen when the Pharisees hardened their hearts

against His teaching. Yet it is written, wonder upon wonder! that Jesus

rejoiced in spirit and said, “Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast hid these

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things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes.” Again,

in the darkness and horror of the dying hour on the cross, His joy burst

forth again in the cry, “It is finished!” Oh, what was in that dying cry!

The work of such a lifetime, the salvation of the world, the way opened

up for the return of a lost race—all had been accomplished. No wonder

His last cry was the shout “It is finished!” While others wept, groaned and

trembled, Jesus expired with a mighty cry of triumph. Isaiah throws light

on it in the words, “He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.”

Still again, Christ’s joy remained in the darkest circumstances. Judas

betrayed Him, but His peace could no man take away. Peter denied Him,

but He remained calm and restful. Many turned from following Him at one

time, and at another hour the twelve fled, leaving Him bound in the hands

of His enemies. But He said in the midst of it all that He was not alone;

that the Father was with Him, and left record in that speech of a joy as far

above the pleasures known by what is called the multitude or crowd as

heaven is above the earth. What a marvelous gladness is that which neither

desertion of friend or wrath of enemy or assault of hell could disturb or

destroy! And yet this is what Christ had.

A second thought I find in the text is:

First, He wants us to have joy. This is the plain statement of the text, and

completely refutes the idea of a gloomy Christianity. There are some

people who think cheerfulness is a sin; that to unbend from the severest

gravity shows loss of grace and savors of iniquity. I know of people who

have that idea of the Christian religion, and will not allow children to play,

and when a bright conversational spirit is indulged with smiles and an

occasional laugh, will say to one thus offending, “Look out, brother,” “Be

careful, my Christian friend.”

I can see how wrong instruction about the spirit of Christianity, and how

ill-health, and ascetic times and ages could generate such views. But this

does not make it right, and we need to come into the clear, cloudless

presence of Christ to be correctly taught about the sunniness of the piety.

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I am not standing for hilarity, jocularity or frivolity, but the joy that

comes from salvation. There are two kinds of joy unquestionably. The

outbursts of merriment among the worldly have no place in the happiness

I speak of here. I remember that a gentleman came to one of my meetings,

and as he marked the glad spirit, listened to the shouts and occasional

laughter of the shining faced congregation, he was at first disturbed and

displeased; but in a little while he saw the laugh and gladness was not of

the world at all—that it was of heaven, and that worldly people could see

nothing in it and could not join in it. So he sought me out and said, “I take

back all I said about this meeting, I see it is of God.” So distinct and

separate are the joys of salvation and of the world that I have noticed that

when the world laughs the real Christian does not, and when Christians

rejoice and shout sinners are silent.

Again, while Christ wants us to have joy, He desires it to be His joy. The

text is explicit here—”That my joy might be in you.” This, of course,

makes it a holy gladness, and separates it from the unprofitable mirth of

the world. As a Christ-like joy, it must be like His in the respects I have

mentioned. In the unlikeliest times it must flame out. Just as I once heard a

sanctified man shout while listening to an anti-holiness sermon, and just as

I have seen bereaved people suddenly rejoice by the side of open coffin or

grave. At the very moment others who have not this joy would go down

we who possess it must arise and shine. In the darkest circumstances it

should beam forth like a star clear and white through rifted clouds at

midnight. This was Christ’s joy, and He wants us to have it.

Then He desires our joy to be full. Here must go down all argument for a

gloomy religion and ascetic piety. How can such views stand a moment

before the words, “These things have I spoken unto you—that your joy

might be full.”

Still again, He wants this full joy to remain. He says this in so many

words. Where is he who can plead for a variable, fluctuating religious

experience in the face of this text? To all who look for occasional spells of

gladness and many days of unrest, uncertainty, and even gloom, I call

attention to the words of the Son of God, “These things have I spoken

that my joy might remain in you.” A full joy in the heart and remaining,

seems to settle the question with me about an even religious experience, a

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constantly shining face and an unbroken victory in the soul. I see no room

for moping and melancholy. Of course Christ does not mean that

everything on the outside will be straightened up; He is speaking of the

inside. He says distinctly, in the world ye shall have tribulation, but in Me

ye shall have peace. There may be war and discord in the world, but peace

and joy shall be in the soul.

One reason is that the joyful state is the proper condition of the soul. It

seems to quicken and arouse every dormant faculty of the spirit. We have

all seen ordinary people become extraordinary under spiritual rapture, and

all who listen to me now can recall times when, under the spell of holy

joy, you stood transfigured, not only before your friends, but before

yourself. Then arose to the surface gifts and capacities that you scarcely

dreamed of; there were depths of love, a sweeping rush of speech, and

possibility and ability as well, to achieve and suffer for God and man, all

suddenly revealed to you, that filled you with tremblings of a delicious

happiness. Joy seems to have the touch of the Prince that wakes up the

slumbering beauties and powers of the soul.

Again, it best recommends the service and Kingdom of Christ. One thing

you will readily see, that an illy dressed child, a sad and hungry looking

clerk and laborer is a sad commentary on the family that claims or the firm

that employs them. In like manner a melancholy Christian will but poorly

represent a gospel that means Good News, and a Savior who is said to be

anointed with joy above all His fellows.

Recently at a meeting a woman of eighty years of age, and member of the

church all her life, came to the altar. Noticing the look of settled gloom on

her face and bidding her look to Christ, she replied: “I have been a mourner

sixty years!” She evidently intended to impress me, and she did. Think of

a soul mourning in the service of God for over half a century! And think of

the harm she had done, the low spirits and blue horrors she had generated

in others in that time by her very appearance, not to speak of her words.

On the other hand, a child of God happy and rejoicing becomes a walking

advertisement of the goodness of God and the preciousness of the Gospel.

Again, this joy is attractive.

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We need a drawing power in the church. And Christ has supplied it in the

bright faces and overflowing hearts of His people. When the holy gladness

filled the disciples the whole city of Jerusalem was affected, and rushed

down to behold the marvelous spectacle of joy-filled men and women, and

from that day to this whenever the church has hearkened to Christ, and

tarried for this blessed, abiding experience, the old attractive power and

drawing influence has at once been felt. We need none of the wretched

make-shifts we see in some places today. We need no games, frolics and

church suppers. The Holy Ghost filling us with a holy joy will draw the

right crowd and draw them not for amusement, but for salvation.

I am sure that if we were prospecting for a settlement somewhere, and on

passing the shores of a certain country would see that all the inhabitants,

whether on street or road, in field or on bank of river, were looking healthy

and happy, we would feel like casting anchor and driving down stakes

with them. On the other hand, if they looked poorly fed, were in rags, and

had sallow, cadaverous countenances, we would naturally sail by such a

country that was killing the inhabitants by poverty and malaria.

Only let the church get the full and abiding joy of Christ, and there will be

a rush from the ranks of sinners to join the happy, singing, shouting

servants of Heaven, whose faces, voices and lives all agree in the

testimony of having a better time than the world ever dreamed of. It is not

mournful songs of captivity by the waters of Babel that will win men to

us, but hallelujahs of salvation and perfect spiritual freedom ringing forth

on the air. It is not a willow wand we want, but a palm branch. Not a

miserere, but a rapturous Hosanna.

Again this joy convicts.

We all crave for the church the power to smite sinners to the heart. We

want to see them troubled so that they cannot eat, drink or sleep, but will

fall headlong at the altar, crying for mercy.

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In all my round of observation and reading I have never known anything to

surpass in convicting influence the sight of a body of God’s people filled

with a mighty, holy joy. It was this very spectacle at Pentecost that broke

to pieces a multitude in Jerusalem, and made men smite their breasts,

crying out, “What must we do?” We have all seen similar scenes many

times and in widely separated places, and I have observed that men who

can brace themselves successfully against argument, reproof, song and

sermon go down in the presence of a genuine general rejoicing of the

church. On one occasion I beheld a powerful conviction fall on a

congregation, brought about by the loud, continuous laughter of two

sanctified people in the audience. They were male and female, were on

opposite sides of the church, and did not even know each other, but God

filled their souls and overflowed their lips with rapturous laughter. Oh,

how they laughed! and how startled the audience looked! They felt they

were being flanked. Then a great awe settled down upon the assembly, and

that night the altar was filled.

Here we are looking around for great men and mighty arguments to sweep

down the opposition of sin and the world, when if we would only wait on

God until we obtained this joy of Christ that is full and that remains

nothing could stand before us.

Furthermore, this joy is an inspiration to Christian endeavor and

achievement.

I was reading recently of a great fire in one of our large cities. One lofty

building was soon doomed, when, on the top floor, a child was seen at a

window A fireman ran up the ladder and tried to enter a room in the story

below, but the heat and smoke were so great that he recoiled. Just then

some one in the crowd below, marking his hesitation, cried out, “Give him

a cheer,” and at once a mighty shout went up. It fired and filled the man,

and he made a great leap, and dashing through the window into the room

staggered through the smoke up the staircase into the upper floor, caught

the child and in a few moments reappeared at the window with it in his

arms. As he descended the long ladder and gave the child in safety to its

distracted loved ones, the shout that followed fairly rent the heavens.

This is what is needed in the church today, and yet what is rarely seen or

heard. There are reforms to be made, rebukes to be uttered and deeds to be

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done in the denunciation of sin or the defense of truth where the preacher,

writer or worker needs to be cheered and in every way morally sustained

by the people of God everywhere. Instead of this, however, he finds to his

amazement that he is lectured for his boldness, told that he is without tact,

informed that he is fanatical and extreme and advised to go slow. This

comes often from high quarters, where he should have met with

encouragement and approval. What wonder that many ardent spirits have

been chilled. A divine vocation is transformed into a mere profession, and

a flaming messenger of Heaven into a simple pulpit figurehead.

Instead of this if the church was full of holy joy, her cries of faith, spirit of

courage and waving banners of victory would gladden, inspire and electrify

the hearts of her sons and daughters in difficult and dangerous places; and

brilliant deeds and wonders of accomplishment would be seen on all sides,

to the astonishment of hell, the delight of earth and joy of heaven.

Lord, give us this great and glad blessing.

Please read again the first five words of the text: “These things have I

the text is taken. The things that Christ had been speaking about were the

vine and branches. He said that some of these branches which bore no fruit

were taken away and burned. Then He said there were other branches

which did bear fruit. Notice they were in the vine which is Christ, and

bearing fruit. But mark you the Divine Husbandman purgeth or cleanseth

these fruit-bearing limbs that they might bring forth more fruit.

This is what a great wing in the church is contending for today; that after

getting into Christ, feeling the sap of the Divine life coursing in us, and

bringing forth fruit unto God, there is a second and subsequent work of

grace which purgeth, cleanseth and purifieth the soul, and from that hour

we bring forth fruit more abundantly.

Jesus had been speaking of this cleansing, and so says: “These things have

I spoken to you;” that is, all about the purging of the branch in the vine;

and to the end that they might have his joy, a full joy and a joy that would

remain.

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There is no question but that this is the only way to obtain the gladness

He speaks of. He who is already in Christ the Vine, and will seek the

Divine cleansing or purification of his justified soul, will immediately

receive Christ’s joy which is full and will remain.

The very expression, “My joy,” shows a second and subsequent

experience. Christ’s joy is not the happiness of a pardoned man. The

justified soul has a gladness of its own. Hence we have the two

expressions in the text, “My joy” and “Your joy.”

Let “My joy” remain in you and “your joy” will be full, are the words of

the Savior. May they be followed out today. Let every justified man, or

branch in the vine, get the purging from inbred sin by the baptism of the

Holy Ghost and the result will be not only more fruit in the life, but

Christ’s joy in the soul; a full joy at that, and one that remains in spite of

every circumstance and condition of life.

It has component parts. It is subject to spiritual analysis. And it actually

increases the gladness of the owner to observe the different parts of this

complete whole.

It is the joy of purity.

This is what takes place in sanctification. When the baptism of the Holy

Ghost fell on the disciples, Peter said their hearts were “purified by faith.”

The instant we receive the second work of grace we feel the same

purification. This is the first thought that thrills the soul, “I am clean.” It

is not the cleanness that comes from pardoned sin, but a purity which has

been wrought by the Baptism of Fire. The soul feels that it has been made

pure. This is not only a conviction, but a blessed realization. It is this

distinct experience and soul possession or heart condition which gives

such a buoyancy to the spirit, such a brightness to the face, such a flash

and sparkle to the eye, such a thrill to the voice and causes such hallelujahs

and joyous songs to flow from the lips.

The instant the soul loses this distinct experience of purity, it droops! the

face clouds, the daughters of music become still and the whole life silent

and melancholy.

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I once heard of a canary bird that was a great singer. He was at it from

morning to night as he fluttered about in his handsome cage that had in it

every supply for his wants. One day his little glass bowl was broken

which was bath-tub or cleansing fountain to him. Immediately it was

noticed that he began to droop, sang fitfully and on the second day quit

singing altogether. All were alarmed about the little pet and thought he was

sick. After nearly a week another glass bowl full of water was placed in

the cage. At once the bird flew to its brim and in a flutter of delight began

to scatter the crystal fluid and spray it over his feathers and prune and

cleanse himself. At the same time the singing recommenced? It seemed that

he only sang when he was clean.

So with the soul. Take away the sense of cleanness and it droops and is

silent. But as long as it keeps pure with the cleansing blood of Christ it

sings, no matter where it is. It is happy and blest with the joy of

conscious purity.

Do you know there is scarcely a sweeter joy. Many of us have been

misinformed and wrongly taught about it. Most of us grew up with the

idea that obedience was a kind of slavery which we would gladly throw off

when we were grown. Satan also has whispered the falsehood to us that

obedience to anyone was a species of bondage, that the law and

commandments of God were oppressive and that having our own way and

throwing off all authority was the way to happiness. That disobedience

brought not only freedom but gladness and delight. Alas, that any of us

ever believed him and fell into his snares.

If disobedience brings gladness, why is the disobedient child so dark-faced,

sullen and miserable. I recall once having played truant from school. I did

so at the instigation of a classmate who told me that if I would not go to

school, but let the family think I had gone, I could fill the hours thus taken

from tiresome book tasks with joy by playing truant or “hookey” as he

called it. I believed him, deceived my mother, stayed from school and tried

to frolic away the five or six hours with my young companions in the

basement of a large dwelling. A number of games were played and there

was a great effort to be happy. But to this day I remember the length of

those hours, the dreariness of the games, and the heavy load and sick heart

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I carried in my breast. I never played “hookey” again. I found out that

disobedience was not the way for a boy to find happiness. On the other

hand have we not all noticed how bright, cheerful and contented, obedient

children are.

Disobedience does not bring gladness to the citizen. Let a man break the

law and then behold his wretchedness. Thoughts of jail, the apprehension

of officers, writs of arrest and commitments now fill and terrorize his

mind. But look at the obedient citizen, how he walks unconcerned by

penitentiaries, brushes the very sleeve of a policeman and is full of rest as

to that side of life. What and why should he fear? He is keeping the law.

Now take the sinner or refractory child of God. Do we not know that

disobedience makes them both miserable? Do I need to prove it when we

see their miserable faces and hear their wretched confessions?

It is obedience to God that brings joy. Many of us have found it so; and

that while occasional facts of submission brought blessing, that a constant

submission and steady obedience fills the soul with perfect peace. The

happiest man that ever lived, the One who was anointed with joy, above

all his fellows said, “Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,” and again, “I

always do those things which please Him.” This Christ-joy, God will put

in every believers heart who will seek it as should be done.

How the world dreads this word and its practice in life. The very terms

self-immolation, self-abnegation, crucifixion and death of self fills them

with pain. They believe such a life is one of misery. Satan has told them

so, and they believe him. They do not know that the purest happiness

arises from the spirit and practice of sacrifice or living and dying for

others. Feeling as they do that the way to happiness is by self coddling

and gratification they avoid the life we speak of in every conceivable way.

They clamor for their rights, struggle for their privileges, and live for their

own comfort and ease. We have only to glance at them to see they have

met with utter failure to find happiness by the route they travel. The most

miserable people I ever met are those who always must have and do have

what they call “their way.” The funeral of their pleasure and contentment

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was long ago predicted by Christ when He said, “He that saveth his life

shall lose it.”

We read of one in this Book who never pleased Himself. He emptied

Himself for the happiness and salvation of others. His whole life was one

long sacrifice. Was He miserable? Read the texts “These things have I

spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you.” Study the people who

are filled with His Spirit and copy His example and see if they are gloomy.

Did you ever hear of the household drudge. By some kind of tacit

agreement or understanding the whole family allow one member to bear the

main burden of work. I have seen such things done, and saw a light in the

countenance of that over-loaded and over-worked one that was not to be

seen in the others.

I was once visiting a Faith Home in, one of our large cities, it was run in

behalf of foundlings. One of the nurses was a young woman of nineteen or

twenty, Her face was fairly lustrous with that “shine” the Holy Ghost

alone can give. I was so struck with the holy joyful light which beamed

from her countenance that I asked about her, and found that she was a

young lady who had voluntarily entered upon this work of nursing and

taking care of these poor little cast off infants; that she refused all

compensation and did it from pure love to Christ and these deeply

wronged children. The life of sacrifice brought a joy to her heart and

beautiful light to her face that could never be found in the abodes of

selfishness and worldly pleasure.

I once had a presiding elder who so loved the work of God and the souls of

men, that he would stay away from his home two and three months at a

time on his district. He loved his home but soul saving had become a

passion with him and he burned up to do good. Several times I slept in the

same room with him, and when he prayed by his bedside before retiring I

have seen him so under the power of God that he shook and trembled like

a man with a congestive chill. The whole life was one of sacrifice and the

same joy that filled his Lord was overflowing him as the inseparable

accompaniment and compensation of such a life.

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How men dread persecution. They think that when abuse, detraction and

opposition comes to the life, joy must go. How is it possible to be happy

when everybody is talking about them and in various ways is against

them. Hence many thousands carefully avoid saying and doing anything

that will bring such a storm down upon their lives.

I once thought that the people who were abused and slandered in the

Christian life must be perfectly miserable and unable to eat or sleep. I

never made a greater mistake in my life. On coming to know such people I

found them radiant with joy, eating well, sleeping quietly, and working for

God joyously without any letting up. The miserable people I found were

those who were conducting the persecution. Peter slept in the dungeon of

the castle while his would-be murderers could not rest. Daniel was quiet

and in full serenity of spirit in the den of lions. It was the king who had

him put in who “cried out with a lamentable voice,” while Daniel’s voice

was strong and courageous as he said, “O King, my God can deliver me.”

Do you know what Christ said we must do under persecution? Maybe

you have not read it. Here it is: “When men shall revile you and persecute

you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake—

rejoice and be exceedingly glad!” and in another place He says, “Leap for

joy!”

One only need look at the sufferings of the apostles to see that they were

much happier than the men who beat them. The Bible says the disciples

rejoiced, while their tormentors raged and gnashed their teeth. Stephen had

a better time than the howling mob who stoned him to death. When they

laid hands upon him his face was like that of an angel, and in the midst of

the shower of rocks and stones that were cracking the bones and staving in

skull and body, he prayed for them and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my

spirit,” fell gently to sleep. Paul after his stoning, went into town and

comforted the disciples. Wonder upon wonder. He did the comforting; the

man who had been dragged out of the city and pelted with great stones

until all thought he was dead. The martyrs all died rejoicing whether

thrown to wild beasts, crucified or burned at the stake. Wesley was

happier far than the ecclesiastics who slandered him in print and stirred up

multitudes to mob him. And so it has been all along, is now, and ever shall

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b e, the man or woman persecuted for righteousness sake is always

happier than the persecutor.

I had a preacher friend who received this fullness of joy or sanctification.

From that hour he had trouble with his Conference. In addition to trials

and opposition of every kind, he was openly denounced and ridiculed on

the conference floor, one preacher saying that he would rather have the

devil turned loose on his circuit than this same brother. At this moment a

number of eyes were turned toward the corner where sat the abused but

silent man of God, and it was noticed that his face had the light of a

strange, sweet peace upon it, and that he evidently was the happiest man

in the conference room. In a word when Jesus sees one of His servants

suffering for Him, He instantly flies to his side and ranks with him. The

three in the fire increase to four, and the form of the fourth is that of the

Son of God. So blessed and heavenly is that communion, so absorbed is

the persecuted man in what Christ is saying that he forgets or neglects to

hear what his persecutors are talking about.

Some of you know the gladness of standing for God in company with

others. I grant you that this also is blessed. It always brings a reward to

the breast to be on the side of right and truth. But did you know that there

was a peculiar rapture and blessedness standing alone for the Lord?

Because of the difficulty of so doing there had to be, and ought to be a

special reward in spiritual things for the position and life of solitary

faithfulness.

If the sight moves us, how must it effect God to see an individual true to

Him, though family friends and all men fall away. Do not think of repining

because of such a state of affairs. Christ marks the devotion and will bless.

He sees His follower unappreciated in the home circle, isolated by the

church, and rejected by the world, and yet standing true to Him in face of

it all. For such a soul He has the sweetest and holiest joy of the other

world for compensation.

You may think some of you that you have great happiness in the Christian

life with big conventions, church societies, great union revivals, while you

keep step in the rank and file, led by the music of the band. It is all right, I

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say nothing against it; but I tell you there is a joy in standing alone for

God that for depth and purity and rapture has never entered some of your

minds to conceive.

I see the Savior in the Temple Court beringed with Pharisees and Elders

trying to entrap and find cause of accusation against him. He stood alone

for his Father, and yet that solitary One speaks of a joy that no man could

take from him.

I see John in exile on Patmos. But oh the rapture of opening heavens,

visions of the golden-paved, jasper-walled city, and the thrilling

communion and glorious visible presence of the Son of God. Surely he lost

nothing for being lonely for the sake of Christ.

I recall once in my life that I was led of God to uphold a great truth in a

large city which brought the newspapers down on me, made my Board of

Stewards petition me not to preach on the subject, and caused hundreds of

people to turn against me. I saw it all and accepted the loneliness for

Jesus’ sake, and in my room, before the delivery of a second sermon on

the subject I was so filled with the Holy Ghost, that I was unable for

several hours to do anything but cry, Glory — Glory — Glory to God!

Alone, and yet not alone. On Patmos, but Heaven in full view.

The joy of a single victory is great. Men love to recall and speak of the

successful combat in boyhood against great odds. They love in old age to

tell how they downed after a hard contest the bully of the school. Samson

turned aside to see the carcass of the lion he had slain some weeks before.

He found it full of honey and went down the road eating some of the

sweet dripping comb. In like manner we love to survey the victory of the

past, and it is always full of sweetness. The greater and nobler the victory

the sweeter the reflection. And as the mightiest foes are found and greatest

battles fought in the moral life, so a victory won on that field is the most

blessed of all triumphs and affords the deepest joy. A single victory won

there is always pleasant to recall. But what if we obtain a blessing that

brings us constant victories over all kinds of foes and at all times. What an

experience that would be, a joy made up of a countless succession of joys;

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and all this gladness springing from perpetual victory over self and sin

through the blood of Christ as realized in the grace of sanctification.

In such a life as this, dead lions full of honey are found everywhere,

strewn along not only the days but the hours. The soul is flushed, the

heart sings, the lips shout over constant and countless triumphs in the

spiritual life. Walls crack and fall, seas open, rivers divide, and devils fear

and fly. We are not only conquerors, but more than conquerors through

Him who loves us and dwells in us. Hallelujah!

There is, thank God, a victory side to our blessed Christianity. Men have

been slow to realize it, but they are finding it out at last. There is no need

to have a single defeat. Christ is greater than the devil. Grace abounds over

sin. Heaven is mightier than hell. The blood cleanses from all sin and keeps

us pure as well. Jesus is mighty to save. He is not only the uttermost

Savior but the innermost, outermost and uppermost Savior. Through Him

we can do all things. And so the triumphs take place and we live on “the

victory side,” and with the victory of course comes the joy.

Did any one ever study the difference between defeated and victorious

armies? Who that read the newspaper accounts of the late Turkish and

Grecian war but could through the very type see and feel the despondency

of the defeated retreating troops, and the joy and enthusiasm of the

advancing hosts.

There was once a European war. Two reporters were sent the field, one on

either side. One was with the victorious army, the other with the side

which was falling back. The letters of these two reporters were studies as

to contrasts. Both were passing through the same country, along the same

roads, viewing the identical scenery. But one wrote that it was a

melancholy looking land, with nothing to cheer the eye or hold in pleasant

recollection. The other wrote that the landscapes were lovely, the tints on

the mountains exquisite, the skies blue, the woods vocal with singing birds,

and the fields beautiful and gay with wild flowers. The explanation was

that the first man was with a defeated and retreating army, and the second

was with a victorious and advancing one.

Every day nearly I see these two reporters reproduced in the Christian

life. The sad and the glad are side by side in the same family, church or

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community. If the truth were known, one is falling back, the other pressing

forward. The drooping spirits infallibly declare the fact of moral defeat in

heart and life. Men and women may plead ill-health and other things as the

cause, but the truth is that the soul is not on the victory side as it can and

should be.

When we obtain the blessing which as Paul says, “Always causeth us to

triumph,” then the whole life is vitalized afresh, the soul is filled with

melody, the lips overflow with praise, and the very face in its rested,

happy look tells of a great indwelling gladness. We view the same scenes,

pass through the same hours, have the same besetments and difficulties,

but instead of retreat it is advance with the soul, and instead of defeat

there is constant victory. Hence the joy.

There is a Christian life that is notable for its man-fear, irritability and

fluctuation. There is another which is remarkable for its sweetness,

boldness and steadfastness. The Bible speaks of both, and life and

experience tell of both. We find that just as the disciples were

metamorphosed on the Day of Pentecost and became like new men, so

there is a blessing which purifies and empowers the believer today and fills

him with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. All who come into this grace,

whether agreeing upon terms or not as to its proper title, unite in the belief

through a common experience that they possess a full salvation. It is not

simply a free, but a full salvation. It is not only enough for those who have

it, but they have an overflowing abundance which flows out to others.

This full salvation brings a steady peace, an abiding assurance, a mighty

confidence in God, a constant reliance on the blood, a continuous victory

over sin and Satan, a rejoicing evermore, a praying without ceasing, and in

everything a giving of thanks.

This is full salvation. This is what Christ prayed that we might have. And

when a man has it, his joy is bound to be full, and better still it will remain.

When the people of God obtain this grace, then will Zion arise and shine;

then will salvation be seen in her like a lamp that shines and like a fire that

burns. Filled with this holy, quenchless joy, the church will draw the

people to her like doves to the windows, nations will be born in a day,

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continents will wheel into line and the kingdoms of this world will become

the kingdoms of our God and His Christ.

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CHAPTER 10

KINDNESS

“And the king said, Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I

may show the kindness of God unto him? And Ziba said unto the

Samuel 9:3.

We often hear David ridiculed and sneered at, and yet, with the exception

of one act of iniquity, it is hard to find a lovelier character in the Bible. I

wonder, leaving out this one great sin of his life, how his critics would look

when measured by him and his life which was so filled with beautiful and

noble deeds. Where will we find a more courageous man, who feared not

bear, lion or giant? Who of our acquaintances ever equaled his liberality? In

his one gift to the temple he gave more than all the churches of the United

States combined in a year. Then what loyalty to God, what devotion to a

friend and what magnanimity to an enemy who was placed in his power!

In addition to all these graces of his character, I have been deeply

impressed with the kindness of the man. It is this that the text speaks of.

By kindness I mean the outward expression of a heart that is filled with

love. It is not only a spirit of interest in people, with a manner of

gentleness, but a life filled with deeds of benevolence. The heart is not

only pitiful, but goes forth in acts of mercy and help of every kind.

Kindness shows itself in deeds of consideration for others, and stands

continually revealed in deportment, disposition, language and action.

It is not the practice of saying oily, pleasant things. I have known such

people, and their hearts knew not the love I am speaking about, and their

lives proved it. The smooth, inoffensive speech of worldly policy is not

kindness. Many deeds done and paraded in the newspapers is not

kindness. There must be a union of heart and hand for the birth of this

beautiful spirit of which I am speaking. Many acts of private and public

benevolence claimed to be the offspring of the kind heart will have the veil

stripped from them at the last day, and we see that which looked so well

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outwardly was done through fear, or self-interest, or hope of reward, or

for public recognition and favor.

The Bible puts kindness down as a fruit of the Spirit. It is undoubtedly an

outflow of the character, and represents the habitual poise and condition

of the soul. There were some striking peculiarities about the kindness of

David, to which I call your attention.

There is a good deal in this thought. I hear many people saying of

themselves and others that they have kind hearts, when there is nothing in

the life to prove it. If we must believe the statements made about us, there

are more kind hearts than kind lives. As I once heard a young man in my

theological class say to the examiner, “I have the answer in me but cannot

get it out;” So there seems to be a kindness that abides within and is unable

to come forth. Decidedly unlike the life of Jesus, who went abroad doing

good.

A gentleman who had been much in the world said he had lived in twenty

different families, and in only three did he see kindness practiced.

Seventeen of them doubtless thought they had it, but believed in keeping it

out of sight.

The remarkable feature of David’s kindness was that it became visible.

When a certain neighboring king died he sent messengers at once to offer

sympathy and consolation to the son. When Abner was murdered he even

fasted and wept over the untimely death of the great warrior. And here in

the text and chapter we see him interested in and helping a poor,

unfortunate cripple, the son of Jonathan. His kindness showed itself.

I, for one, say, let me have a kindness that is visible, audible and tangible.

Save me from a love that says it exists but stands off and does not reveal

itself. Truly such was the pity of the priest and Levite who looked at the

wounded traveler, sighed, shook their heads and went on. This world

wants, and you and I desire and need a kindness that picks us up, pours

wine and oil into our wounds, puts us on the beast, carries us to the inn,

and pledges itself to still further assistance in case of continued need and

helplessness.

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Hear the text: “Is there not one” whom I can help? Where is he? And then

David sends for him.

There is a love in this world that is only stirred when the object of pity is

before the eyes. We have all seen this love. It lets men starve and freeze

around us, and then sigh over it as we read the morning paper account of

how individuals were found frozen to death in garrets, or on door-steps in

the street. It allows the heathen to go without the Gospel, when if they

could see them this help would be given.

Mr. Beecher, by causing a slave girl to stand by his side in the pulpit,

raised over a thousand dollars to redeem her, when the plain statement of

the case without the object lesson would have failed. David did not wait

for the poor, crippled Mephibosheth to stand before him to give him help,

but sent messengers to find him.

I wonder if any of you ever started out some day determined to find and

relieve any suffering that might be about you—a regular crusade against

misery and trouble? You have heard of people going out for a day of sport,

to find pleasure. But think of going forth to discover cares of need and

sorrow. It would be a Christlike, though a very unusual proceeding. Listen

to me! I have seen people go out to seek pleasure and come back in

sorrow, and I have known them to go forth to find sorrow in order to

relieve it and return overflowing with joy. This is one of the paradoxes of

the spiritual life.

Some one gave Mr. Wesley five pounds one evening. He immediately went

out on the streets of London, asking God to guide him to those who

needed relief. The result of that evening’s walk forms one of the most

entertaining passages in the history of the founder of our church. It is all

described in his journal. Suffice it to say, among a number of things, he

kept a man from being imprisoned for debt and restored him to his

weeping wife, and saved a man from dying in a tenement house, where he

was rapidly sinking from lack of food and attention. The man proved to be

a merchant who had been ruined by a false friend. Mr. Wesley secured him

business again, the man prospered, became wealthy, and founded in his old

age an asylum for broken-down and ruined business men. Strange to say,

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one of the first men admitted into it was the man who had caused his

bankruptcy in former years.

As we look upon these things we say, Lord, give us a kindness like that of

Wesley, and like that of David, who went forth to seek objects of need.

Both got their kindness from the Lord. They learned it from Him. In fact,

the text calls it the kindness of God.

There is a rocking-chair kindness, which sighs and is so sorry to hear of

the want and woe of the world, and wipes its eyes and—rocks on. It is all

very nice, but may the good Lord grant a human kindness that, like that of

Jesus of Nazareth, does not stop with weeping over Jerusalem, but goes

abroad everywhere doing good.

Who was this Mephibosheth that David proposed to help. The Bible tells

us the direct descendant of Saul, a man who had taken away his wife,

driven him from his home, kept him starved in the mountains and had tried

continually for years to take his life. All those pitiful laments in the

Psalms, those wails over persecution and wrong and violence were

extorted from him by the relentless and unreasonable hatred of Saul.

And yet here is David saying, “Are there any of the house of Saul that I

can shew the kindness of God unto him.”

My brethren this man lived away back in the world’s twilight, and we are

Christians in the full noon of the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, and yet

he is a rebuke to many of us. Men have laughed and sneered at David and

yet his example here covers with shame many of his critics and judges.

Doubtless some of you before me have been appealed to in behalf of

certain cases and individuals, and you said, “No, his family had injured

you, his people had talked about you; or their father had hurt your father;

or you had helped the man once and he proved ungrateful. So that you

washed your hands of the whole matter.”

How beautiful and Christ-like David’s course appears by such conduct:

“Is there not yet any of the house of Saul that I may shew the kindness of

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God unto him.” The words sound lovelier to me every time I read them.

They are worthy of being placed in the living rock.

You and I have heard of such a motto as this, “Never forget a friend or

forgive an enemy.” I have heard it uttered by members of the church. I

need hardly say that it is worthy of an Indian on the plains, or a Hottentot

in his jungle, but hardly fitting from the lips of one saying he knows, loves

and follows Christ. Jesus long ago said if we were kind to those who were

kind to us we have done nothing more than heathens or publicans; then

added, “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in heaven is

perfect”—and shows the perfectness He is speaking of is love when He

says “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil—and sendeth rain on the

unjust.”

You have heard some of you the saying that is as true as the Gospel: “To

return good for good is human-like; to return evil for evil is beast-like; to

return evil for good is devil-like; but to return good for evil is God-like.”

This last was David’s kindness. In fact he called it the kindness of God.

He got it from God, and we can do the same, and must do the same if we

say we are Christians and expect to see Christ in glory.

This Mephibosheth whom David helped was friendless, penniless,

homeless, throneless, and in addition to all that, a cripple. And yet this

poor creature without influence and power, who could never return a

single benefit, this almost last descendant of his enemy he takes to his own

home, has him to eat at his table and becomes a father to him. Where are

you my brethren who have been sneering at David. Do you not see now

why God said, “He was a man after his own heart.”

Now please look and see what is considered, labeled and called kindness

by people that you and I know.

Here is a wealthy gentleman living in your neighborhood in an elegant

home. With his ample means he can command anything he desires, he does

not need you or anything you can do and yet hearing of some slight

indisposition on his part you go over anxiously inquiring after his health,

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and say, “Colonel, if there is anything I can do for you, please do not

hesitate to call upon me.” He thanks you, but does not call on you. He

does not need you, and you go away thinking you have a kind heart. But

just the same distance from your house to the Colonel’s residence is

another dwelling quite humble and unpretentious. In it is a man who

straightened for means and out of work, really needs a number of things

you could do for him. But you somehow fail to knock at his door and

anxiously inquire after his health, and say, “If there is anything I can do

for you please do not hesitate to call on me.” Perhaps you are afraid he

will call on you is the reason you do not go over to see him.

Again, here is a wealthy, fashionable lady who has a slight headache from

being up too late at an evening entertainment. Over you float, my sister, in

becoming attire, with a silver waiter bearing some delicacies that you have

prepared with your own hands, and with a face full of solicitude about this

society invalid before you. You are admitted into an elegant bed room with

thick carpets and lace curtains and sit down in a rose-wood rocker costing

fifty dollars. The imaginary invalid with smelling salts at the nostril and

buried in downy pillows languidly receives your voluble expressions of

concern, and when you leave sends the waiter with what you call

delicacies upon it down to the kitchen and the servants eat the “delicacies”

or they are thrown into the slop. They have a cook over there that as a

caterer and preparer of elegant dishes is far your superior. Meantime you

wend your way with a pleased smile thinking you have shown “kindness”

when the light of the Great Day will reveal that you exhibited “toadying.”

Just a few blocks from your house, and not as far as the home of the

society invalid, resides a woman who is really sick. With a low, consuming

fever and constant cough and bare larder and empty purse, she certainly

needs help, sympathy, cheering words and “delicacies,” whether brought

on a silver or iron waiter. But while you know about the case you do not

go. It seems that your “kindness” cannot flourish in a place where the

floors are bare, the chairs are rickety and things have a scraped and empty

appearance. It does not like untidy surroundings and persons who are

really sick. It thrives best when people have not much the matter with

them, and where flowers, bird-cages, cushions, ottomans, lace and dumask

curtains abound. This kind of kindness is very delicate and cannot survive

the odor of hovels and the sight of rags. But we read that Jesus laid his

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hand upon the leper and those diseased in every way, and went among the

abodes of squalor and vice; while David is here seen bringing close to

himself a poor cripple. Surely there must be different sorts of kindness,

and I cannot but pray for the kind that will stand the test of the Judgment

Day.

I have seen this so-called kindness appearing in another form. I have seen

certain families in the church greatly given to running after and entertaining

Bishops and other prominent men of the church. What royal dinings and

feasts were prepared in their honor, while these Christian hosts and

hostesses deluded themselves with the thought that this was Christian

kindness.

Jesus has long ago spoken on the subject and given particular direction,

saying, “when thou makest a dinner or supper call not thy rich neighbors,

lest they also bid thee again and a recompense be made thee. But when

thou makest a feast call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou

shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be

recompensed at the resurrection of the just.”

This is true kindness, while the other is an exchange of civilities and worse

still an actual investment with the certain expectation of being repaid in

human favor, social influence and other like things.

Christ does not mean to say we cannot entertain our friends and have them

eat with us; but he does not want us to be deluded with the idea that this

is Christian kindness, and so try to deceive God and fool our own souls.

How many beautifully written and elegantly perfumed notes have been

sent to families of wealth and position “expressing hopes” and “deeply

regretting” and “always remaining,” etc., etc., and the writers thought the

note was a piece of materialized kindness. In a few months these same

prominent families have been plunged into bankruptcy and are filled with

sorrow and despair. Now is the time for the notes. This is the moment

they want human presence and sympathy; but alas, this is also the time

those little perfumed notes cease to come; they can only fly to homes

where plenty and prosperity reside. Hear a parable said Christ and told of

a man who fell among thieves and lay wounded on the highway, and how

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he was treated by different people. Christian kindness follows up the

ruined family and picks up the wounded traveler.

I once saw another form of so-called kindness. A rich man was going

North to be absent about a month or so, and left his dog with a family to

take care of for him. That dog fairly took the house, he tore up and down

the stairs, upset the furniture, and selected the divans and sofas for his

beds. Meantime the family praised the dog; he was so cunning, so lovely,

so sagacious, so nice and so everything. Sometimes these praises would be

interrupted by a crash produced by this same canine mischief maker, and

there was considerable skepticism in the minds of visiting neighbors about

the degree of devotion to that dog felt by his entertainers. There was a

lurking suspicion that no one but a rich man’s dog would be allowed to

upset things is that tidy home. And yet they were trying to persuade

themselves that it was pure kindness at the bottom of the whole affair.

In the immediate neighborhood, a gentleman picked up a poor little

deserted child and carried it to his home and cherished it as one of his own,

when lo, this family that entertained the dog were the first to criticize and

condemn the proceeding. But which of the two deeds was kindness? The

family that entertained the dog knew that his rich owner would bring them

a handsome present; while the man who took care of the waif was

perfectly aware that there could and would be no earthly pay or

compensation for what he did. The child had been completely abandoned

and was utterly friendless.

The kindness which God loves and promises to reward is that, where we

help those who in their misery and poverty cannot recompense us. It is a

ministry to the “poor, maimed, lame and blind.” It is well called the

kindness of God, for this is like God. Hence Christ says, Be perfect even

as your heavenly Father is perfect who sends the rain on the unjust, and

giveth to all men and upbraideth not.

This is an exceedingly important feature of the grace I am talking about,

and is always the mark of real kindness. I notice that David did what he

could for the poor, crippled Mephibosheth while he was alive. He did not

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wait for him to die before becoming interested in him as we have seen

some people do.

If ever we are to help broken-hearted people it must be now and here, for

in Heaven they have no sorrowing spirits. If ever we are to give material

aid and sympathy and comfort it must be on earth, for in the skies there is

no lack of bread, and God has wiped the tears from all faces. They do not

need our comfort up yonder. The earth, with its widespread misery, and

time, with its countless woes and afflictions, is the place and hour for the

exercise of the love we profess to have for individuals and the whole

human race. The Georgia evangelist, speaking of heavenly recognition, said

it was earthly recognition he wanted, and that it must be given now, for

when he was in heaven he would be in such a blessed condition he would

not care whether he was recognized by people or not.

Everything points to this earth and the time in which we live to prove our

love in the exhibition of kindness; and yet some people are letting this one

opportunity of eternity go by unimproved forever. It can never be

recalled. This is our only probation. We pass this way no more forever.

And yet these classes I speak of are allowing this one chance to do good

and be kind to pass by eternally.

Many wait for people to die before suddenly getting interested in their

troubles, struggles, reverses and calamities. When the news gets out what a

burden the man had, and how he finally sunk under it, oh! the subdued

whispers around the coffin, or the remark in the street, “Poor fellow! I

would have helped him if I had only known it.” Well, why did we not

know it? The reason is we have the funeral kindness instead of the

kindness David possessed. We wait for the man to die, while David sought

the man to help him many years before his burial.

There was once a suicide of one of my church members. He could not meet

his obligations, and in despair took his own life. I heard several well-to-do

men remark, I wish I had known it, I would have helped him. They

suddenly became kind while looking at the silent form of what was once a

fellow church member and steward, who, in the weary struggle for bread,

could not keep up, and so fell.

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I have noticed at the funerals conducted by societies and fraternities that

they march around the dead body of their dead comrade, and, each one

throwing a piece of arbor vine or cedar into the grave, will say, “Alas, my

brother!” I have thought as I witnessed this scene of hollow and belated

pity, and looked at the white face in the coffin and the unmistakable lines

showing what a struggle life had been to him—I have thought that if these

same men had taken the time to have said this to the man when alive,

“Alas, my brother!” and grasped his hand in encouragement and help, that

likely he would not be in the coffin, but still in the world, the bread-winner

and loving central figure of the family circle.

I have known a church to allow its pastor to suffer for the needful things

of life, and when his wife and child died from the result of a life of

hardship, immediately became kind and paid all the funeral expenses!

I have known a husband to neglect his wife in his pursuit of pleasure or

business, and when finally she died he wrung his hands over her dead

body, called her his angel wife, said his heart was broken and home

desolate, and climaxed the whole by having a very costly funeral and

having built over the unconscious body the finest marble monument in the

graveyard.

She asked for love and he gave her a stone. And I thought as I pondered

over the whole scene that if some of the loving words he was pouring into

the dead ear had been uttered in life, and if some of the dollars he had

spent on the coffin had been invested in a way to make life and body

easier and less toil-worn, she would have been the happy-faced wife and

mother of the home circle instead of sleeping alone under the cedars and

among the white monuments on the hillside.

What we want is kindness in life and not in death. It is not flowers

scattered on her coffin-lid that will make a woman happy, but a bunch of

them tied together in the form of a bouquet and given her with the words

“I love you.” That makes her pulses leap, the crimson come into her

cheek, the light into her eye and the warm happy feeling rush to her heart.

We want kindness shown us in life. This is what our friends want; this is

what our servants look for; this is what the children need—they crave to

be treated gently and kindly in life, not wept over in death. Hearts

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everywhere, cry “treat me lovingly now.” When dead we do not hear the

cries of affection around the coffin, or feel the tears dripping from

overflowing eyes on our faces. Be kind now.

There are some people who, if they had heard of Mephibosheth, would

have said, “Poor fellow!” and that would have been all; and when he died

would have spoken again and said, “Poor soul, he is at rest!” But David

tried to give him some rest before he went to heaven. He believed in

lightening his burdens and brightening his life while he had life to receive

and appreciate such treatment.

Some of you have taken notice of the invalid who falters on the street or

gets feebly on the cars. Now is the time to speak kindly to him and offer

him your hand or arm. He will soon be gone; we had better be quick or it

will be too late. You have noticed a sad-looking woman at the church.

Offer her some gentle courtesy before she passes out of your life. She is

part of a vast procession constantly moving on, and it is now or never

with us if we desire to make a heavy heart a little lighter and brighter.

You have an old father or mother at home. Be kind to them. Run and open

the door or gate for them. Leap to bring them a chair. Their lives need

human cheering. They have seen many sorrows, wept over many dear

dead faces, seen the friends of youth disappear, and are feeling lonelier

every year that passes. Be loving to them and brighten their few remaining

days; they will soon be gone.

You have a little boy or girl at home. You have been thinking for some time

you would be kinder, stay home of evenings, take part in their games, and

make their little lives happier. You had better be quick about it, for the

little fellows will not be with you long.

I read once a paragraph clipping called “Our Dear Boy.” It was a pen

picture of a father and mother sitting by the fireside alone listening to the

autumn winds outside, while the little boy, who was once the light of the

home, was asleep in the cemetery. They used to think he was noisy and in

the way, but how they now wanted him back. Oh, if he was only there to

tease them for his knife again, or to beg them to fly his kite, or to tie the

door-knob up with cords and strings, and track the hall with his little

muddy shoes. Sometimes the father would start up with his heart beating,

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thinking that he had heard the precious voice outside on the street, but

would sink back again with a groan, remembering the little grave on the

hillside.

There are some men listening to me today whose hearts are going to be

wrung this same way one of these days. You do not go home and spend

the evenings with your family as you once did. The politics club, the

social club, the secret society and fraternity are drawing you away from

the family circle that loves you better than any one else in the world. Your

little boy often asks for you in the evening. “Where is papa, mamma”

“Will papa come home tonight, mama?” And when he is going to bed, and

kneels down to say his prayers, he say “God bless papa,” and that night

dreams of you.

They will tell you all these things about him when he is dead; how he used

to talk about you, sit up with heavy eyelids for you, miss you and go to

bed disconsolate without you. Oh, how I pity you, my brother, when

these things come to pass in your life and make a burden of sorrowful

memory that you will bear the rest of your life!

In the name of God I arraign the saloon, the political club, and the secret

societies, lodges and fraternities for the cause of such loneliness on the one

side and misery on the other. I accuse them as being the cause of lonely,

neglected and deserted homes all over the land.

God help us to be kind to those who have a claim upon our love in this

present world. They do not need our attentions in the world to come. God

save us from throwing anything of this world between us and the love and

duty we owe to our homes and loved ones.

Mere civilities, attentions, and general politeness will impress men

agreeably, but never convince them of the truth, presence and power of

Christianity. What is needed is more than this. It is kindness, and the text

says the kindness of God. That is a kindness like that of God. A loving

heart going forth on a life of sympathy; consolation, benevolence and

assistance of every kind.

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Politeness is of this world, but the kindness I speak of is of Heaven. Men

know it intuitively, and God likewise testifies to it. Moreover it invariably

impresses the world.

When Stephen, who was being stoned, cried, “Lord lay not this sin to their

charge,” he did more to convince the world of the truth of Christianity

than by all the many sermons he had preached in his ministry prior to this

time.

When Robert Raikes gathered the poor and ragged children of his town

about him and taught them the Bible on Sunday; when Muller took care of

two thousand helpless children in his homes of relief; when Wesley lived

on one article of food for many months in order to feed the poor; then

these men did more to prove that Jesus had arisen from the dead and was

living in human hearts and had all power on earth, than any volumes of

Christian evidence that was ever written. God’s best volume of Christian

evidence is six feet long, eighteen inches broad, and bound in human skin.

When this book is filled with kindness it is simply overwhelming in

convincing power.

I knew a man who raised twelve orphan children in the course of his life.

Somehow it was hard not to believe in Jesus in the presence of such

Christlike work.

I know a physician who not only visits the poor and gives free treatment,

but leaves five dollar bills under the pillow when he sees signs of financial

distress. Somehow the heart feels that Christ did certainly rise from the

dead when this man is around; and his beautiful life and spirit scatter

doubt and infidelity before him, like fogs and vapor leave before a clear

crisp morning breeze.

Two memories come forcibly to my mind. One man had greatly wronged

another. The injured man after a lapse of months had suddenly disclosed

to him the corrupt private life of the other. With a few words he could

have driven him from his church and family. But these words he never

spoke.

Again, we knew of a great injury wrought by one man on another. The

injured man left it all with God. In less than two years, the injurer came to

the man whom he had wronged, in great distress, and said, “You can help

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me.” The party addressed said, “God bless you I will do the best I can for

you.”

Verily, this is the kindness of God. This is like the Being who sends his

sunshine and rain upon the unthankful and evil. In fact it came from God.

It is not indigenous to our nature, but is an exotic from Heaven and planted

in the soil of our hearts by the hand of the Lord Himself. If anything on

earth will convince men that Jesus was born in this world, died, rose again,

and has returned to live in human souls, it will be the kind of life we have

been trying to sketch. And verily it does convince.

Recently I heard a gentleman describe a scene that took place on a street of

one of our Northern cities. He said a small lad had a basket of apples and

oranges which he was trying to sell. He was a pale-faced, delicate looking

boy, and as it turned out was the main support of a helpless mother,

young and frail looking as he was. He seemed to be having but poor

success, and the old-young face had an anxious look on it most unfitting

for a child of his years. Suddenly, said the gentleman, a rough looking

young man either designedly or unwittingly in passing gave the basket a

rude jar, knocked it from the arm of the lad and scattered the fruit on the

muddy street in every direction. With a loud laugh the young man went

on, while the boy seemed paralyzed with grief while great tears rolled

down his cheeks. A gentleman in passing witnessed the whole scene, when

instantly he stepped into the street and began picking up the apples and

oranges, and after wiping them one by one with his handkerchief, placed

them al l in the basket, and capped the beautiful act by placing a two dollar

bill in the hands of the astonished lad. Then patting the boy on the head he

was turning to leave when the child, with his tearstained face filled with a

look of wondering gratitude, and his voice shaking with the contending

emotions in him, cried out:

“Sir, are you Jesus?”

I remember how my eyes filled when I heard the incident related, and saw

as it seems I never saw before how we can project Christ before men, and

secure an instantaneous homage and recognition of Jesus from them by

acts and a life of kindness that would be seen in the Savior if he was still

here in the world.

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Lord make us kind.

The Scripture says, “Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shall find it

after many days.” It always comes back in some way to body or soul, and

I believe always to both.

As for this present world, if we could only know all that is going on, we

would see that no man does good without being blessed. So far as the heart

is concerned we cannot afford, for our own sake, not to be good and kind

to all. The light in the eye, the tender feeling in the heart, the swell of spirit

and conscious enlargement of the nature with every noble deed, all agree in

saying it pays to be good and kind. Moreover, the temporal benefit is also

so frequently seen as to convince us that we are brought face to face with

the working of a law, and that we are not contemplating exceptions.

It is told of John B. Gough, that in the days of his intemperance a certain

man kept lifting him up from the gutter and carrying him home with a

persistent patience and love that was divine-like. The day came when

Gough became a redeemed man and was sought after as a lecturer from end

to end of the continent. Also the day came when the friend of John B.

Gough died, and his family were left destitute. Then the tide of kindness

turned the other way bringing the bread with it. This family never lacked

as long as the famous temperance lecturer lived.

Forty or fifty years ago, a poor boy came to New Orleans where he tried

to make his living. A certain family gave him his start. In the course of

time he became a wealthy man, and owned one of the handsomest

residences in the Crescent City. The house and grounds filled one entire

square. He never married, and at his death left his large fortune to the

family that had befriended him is the days of his poverty. The bread came

back.

A Colonel in the Confederate army, whom I knew well, was falling back

with his regiment after a signal defeat to our troops. It was a rapid