The Faith Mission 1886-1964

By Duncan Campbell

Over eighty years ago, a young man with life before him was sitting on a hillside on the Island of Arran. Below, on the Firth of Clyde, steamers and liners bound for America were passing, and yachts sailing hither and thither. As he watched, God spoke to him, challenging him as to what his life was to be — like a pleasure yacht sailing to and fro, or like a liner bound for its ocean goal. He had trusted Christ as his Saviour: now he determined to yield his life utterly to Him, to do His will. Later, he heard of the fullness of the blessing, and by faith received this wonderful gift, and God’s purposes became clear: He was calling him to evangelize the villages and country districts of Scotland. So in obedience to the heavenly vision, leaving business and home, with a few kindred spirits, John George Govan launched the Faith Mission.

The early years were glorious times of revival, with awakening in many communities, when many were saved and others became inspired with the same heavenly vision, joining the new band of missionaries as Pilgrims — the name by which the workers are still known. The work has continued strong and vigorous throughout seventy-seven years, and today almost one hundred are engaged in it.

The vision was carried to South Africa in 1916 by the Misses Garratt, who went forth from the Mission in the homeland and formed the Africa Evangelistic Band. In 1927 the work was extended to Canada. An invitation from a nucleus of friends in Toronto came as a clear call from God to the Founder, just before his Home-call. In 1960 an associate Mission came into being in France, commenced by the Kremer family who had worked in the Faith Mission in Britain.

Working in pairs the Pilgrims give missions of three to six weeks or more to rural and industrial villages and scattered country or highland districts; included in the work have been the Shetland and Orkney Islands, as well as the islands off the west coast of Scotland, and many out of the way places in Eire. Recently work has been commenced in Yorkshire and the English Midlands. Over two hundred missions are held each year, including seaside campaigns in the summer, for which the Pilgrims usually group in fours. Missions are held by invitation of the various evangelical denominations, or independently — frequently in places where no one locally has any concern to see such work done. The Pilgrims devote much time to meeting the people in their homes, and at night evangelistic meetings are conducted — in public halls, churches, schools, barns, portable halls, tents and kitchens or drawing-rooms; in recent years the difficulty of getting lodgings in remote places has been overcome by the use of caravans.

The Mission is interdenominational and the work itinerant: not the establishing of permanent mission stations. The co-operation of all who are favorably disposed is sought, and denominational preferences and distinctions are not interfered with. Those who get help are encouraged to witness for Christ in their own churches. Contact with converts and others who may be blessed is maintained through the Prayer Union, the members of which gather on a suitable week-night for fellowship and prayer, and receive a quarterly visit from a representative of the Faith Mission to take the weekly meeting. There are more than 500 of these little fellowships throughout Scotland, Ireland, East Anglia and Yorkshire and the English Midlands, and often the Prayer Union is the only prayer meeting for many miles around.

Well over 200 Christian conferences are held annually, to which Christians in outlying places, who have opportunities, gather to hear of the fullness of the blessing. The annual Conventions in Edinburgh, in the end of August and early September, and at Bangor, in Northern Ireland, at Easter, are looked forward to with expectancy by very many.

Much interest and support for work in other lands is created, and from among the Pilgrims and Prayer Unions a great number have gone forth into the Christian ministry at home, and in connection with well-known foreign Missions.

In the well-appointed Training Home and Bible College in Edinburgh there are some fifty students in session for a two-year course of instruction in the knowledge of God and His Word, the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit, the prayer life, holiness in every-day living, the art of preaching and personal work, work among children and other related subjects. Experience is received in visiting, preaching, personal work, open-air witnessing and many practical things of everyday life. Lecturers with regular classes include ministers of most denominations, and other leaders in Christian work, with members of the Mission’s own staff, also have regular appointments.

The Rich Fool

And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me …. And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth–(Luk 12:13-15)

What Jesus Did When He Was Interrupted

Jesus was often interrupted in His teaching, and some of the choicest sayings in the Gospel spring from these interruptions of the Lord. When we are interrupted at our work or play, you know how cross we generally are. But Jesus, in His perfect trust and wisdom, turned even His interruptions to account. He had to stop preaching at Capernaum once when the paralytic was lowered through the roof. But instead of fretting, He so used the moment that the crowd in the cottage glorified God. And here, too, as He is teaching, He is brought to a halt by an unlooked-for question. Yet He so answers it, and uses it, and preaches such a memorable sermon on it, that I am sure there was not a disciple but thanked God for the unseemly interruption. Christ felt that not one man could interrupt Him, without the permission of His heavenly Father. It was that present and perfect trust in God that kept Him in His unutterable calm.

Where Was This Man’s Treasure?

While He was speaking, then, of heavenly things–of forgiveness of sins and of the Holy Ghost–and when He paused, perhaps, for an instant to see if Peter and John had understood Him, there came a grating voice upon His ear, “Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.” Now, whether this man was really wronged or not, it is of course impossible to say. And it was not that which stirred the wrath of Jesus–it was the betrayal of the speaker’s heart. A single sentence may be enough to reveal us. A single request may open our inmost soul. And here was a man who had listened to peerless preaching, and might have been carried heavenward on the wings of it, but the moment Jesus stops, he blurts out his petition, and his whole grievance is about his possessions. Does not that show what he was thinking of? Cannot you follow back the workings of his mind through these magnificent teachings that precede? It was that earthly mind that stirred Christ’s anger. It was that which led Him on to preach on greed. There was life eternal in the words of Christ; but this man, in the very hearing of them, could think of nothing but the family gold.

An Anxious, Selfish Fool

Then Jesus told the story of the rich fool, and as He told it His mind went back to Nabal (1Sa 25:1-44). For “Nabal” just means a foolish man, and as his name was, so was he. Like Nabal, too, this churl was not a badman. He had not stolen the wealth that was to wreck him. It was God’s rain that had fallen on his seed. It was God’s sunshine that had ripened his harvest. It was God’s gentleness that made him great. But for all that, his riches ruined him. He gave his heart to them: he gave his soul. Then suddenly, when he was laying his plans, and dreaming his golden dreams about tomorrow, God whispered, “Senseless! This night they want thy soul!” Who the they is–for so it reads in the original–we cannot say. They may be the angels of death; they may be robbers. In any case they are God’s instruments, and the rich man must say goodbye to everything. O folly, never to think of that! He had thought of everything except his God. “And so is he that layeth up treasure for himself, if he is not rich towards God.”

Now there are three things we must notice about this man; and the first is how very anxious he was. When we are young we think that to be rich means to be free from anxiety altogether. We can understand a pauper being anxious, but not a man who has great heaps of gold. But this rich man was just as full of cares as the beggar without a sixpence in the world. He could not sleep for thinking of his crops. That question of the harvest haunted him. It shut out God from him, and every thought of heaven, just as that family inheritance we spoke of silenced the music of Jesus for the questioner. Who is the man who we sometimes call a fool? It is the man with the bee in his bonnet, as we say. But better sometimes to have a bee in the bonnet than to have nothing but barns upon the brain. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

See next how very selfish the man was. Do we hear one whisper of a harvest-thanksgiving? Is there any word of gratitude to God? You would think the man had fashioned the corn himself, and burnished and filled the ears with his own hand, he is so fond of talking of my corn. Do you remember what we learned in the Lord’s Prayer. It is never my there, it is always our. And the Lord’s fool is at opposite poles from the Lord’s Prayer, for he is always babbling about my. And then were there no poor folk in his glen? Was there no Naomi in yon cottage in the town? Did not one single Ruth come out to glean when the tidings traveled of that amazing harvest? If the bosoms of the poor had been his barns, he would have been welcomed at the Throne that night. O selfish and ungrateful!–but halt, have I been selfish this last week? There are few follies in the world like the folly of the selfish man.

Then, lastly, think–and we have partly traveled on this ground already–think how very foolish the man was. Had he said, “Body, take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry!” there might have been some shadow of reason in it. But to think that a soul that hungers after God was ever to be satisfied with food–is there any folly that can equal that? “The world itself,” says James Renwick, “could not fill the heart, for the heart has three corners and the world is round!” Let us so live, then, that when our soul is summoned, we shall say, “Yea, Lord! It has long been wanting home.” And to this end let us seek first the kingdom. For where our treasure is, there will our heart be also.

The Character of Our Testimony

By G.V. Wigram

What is the character of testimony we have to bear in the present day?

There are certain principles which are alike as connected with testimony in all ages. There has been a testimony of God, and for God, from the beginning. Out of the ruins of the fall there were things that God would take up, and bring out a testimony for Himself. Then arises the question, Who can bear testimony for God but God Himself? And those who are witnesses for Him are those who have learned that “all flesh is grass.” There is a certain word that is peculiarly dear to God — SON — the only-begotten of the Father. In Ephesians the Son is connected with the Father’s house and the Father’s bosom. That Son is to have a certain place which He would share with poor sinners saved by grace.

Look at the Son rejected on earth by Jews and Gentiles; and God saying, “They will not have Him on earth, but I will give Him a place at my right hand, and then I will send down the Spirit by which they can call me Abba, Father.” Think of that! I am set here, not to be saved, but to be a witness of the Father’s love to me in Christ. Seeing how Christ can say, “Abba, Father,” I can say, “Abba, Father.” God leaves you down here to show what a son of the Father is, what the Father’s heart is, what the Son of the Father is! If I am but to be a witness of the Father’s love to me in Christ, seeing how Christ can say, “Abba, Father,” I can say, “Abba, Father.” God leaves you down here to show what a son of the Father is, what the Father’s heart is, what the Son of the Father is. If I am not that, I am short of the mark. Testimony for Christ does not consist in separating from this bit of worldliness and that, but in manifesting the spirit of sons. If I am here as a witness, it is clear that the relationship has existed before. Your starting-point is, that you are inside the house. You are children, those whom the Lord Jesus can call brethren. Directly I begin with that (perfect liberty indeed), I say, Who is sufficient for these things? I have my sonship made known to myself, and every step of the way must be in that spirit of sonship by the direct operation of the Spirit of God Himself. What we have to seek after, what to separate from, what the difficulties of the path, and what the joys, are four points to be considered in connection with this testimony for God. The Lord Jesus was separate from sinners purely and perfectly for God. When God is acting in us, who have bodies of sin and death, all the things around we find against us, therefore we are in conflict.

Testimony or witness is merely what we show out. What we have to show out is, that we have a birthright, and onward to heaven in our path God has to put down the little world SELF, which is making itself comfortable with things around and shutting out God. The testimony for the present day, then, is specially one of sonship; and another thing to be remembered is, that testimony must always be a real thing, because a witness is that which God is showing now in grace what we shall have eternally. We have to show the reality of this life which is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The breaking down we get here as saved ones is all connected with that. To walk in simplicity as a child with a father my will. must be refused. (Phil. 2: 13-15.) For me to live is Christ; Paul was a dead man, bearing a living Christ. (Eph. 4: 10.) It has been often remarked that a saint rejoices in the value of the blood at the beginning of his career, then he goes on to learn other truths, and the blood is less prominent in his thoughts; but as he nears the end the blood is again the uppermost in his mind, and it is said this shows that the leading truth with which be begins is the one with which he ends, and other truths are spoken of disparagingly. But I believe it is in a different way the blood is looked at in the beginning and at the end of a saint’s career. It is my value of the blood at first, it is God’s value of the blood at the end, so that there is acquisition of new truth in this case about the blood. G. V. W.

Christian Friend, vol. 8, 1881, p. 127.

Interior Alms

Give for alms that which is within–Luk 11:41 (R.V.)

The importance of the Within

That the rendering of the Revised Version is the right one is suggested by a study of the context. The whole passage is intended to reveal to us the value which Christ attached to the within. A Pharisee had invited Christ to sup with him, and then had marveled that He had omitted washing. This led Jesus to speak His sharp, stem words on the cleansing of the inside of the cup or platter. And then, recalling Pharisaic ostentation not only in washings but in almsgiving’s, He added, “Give for alms that which is within.” It is the same thought as is expressed by Paul in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” It is the same thought as was expressed by Peter when, fixing his gaze on the lame man, he said, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee” (Act 3:6). For to every man there is an outward realm of all the material things which he possesses, and to every man there is an inward realm comprising not what he owns but what he is. And the law which Jesus here lays down is this, that of all giving, that is the most blessed which gives not merely of that which is without but also of that which is within.

I need hardly say that there is no encouragement here to anything like a cheap and spurious charity. No one could ever associate such a thought with any word that fell from Jesus Christ. The tender compassion of Jesus for the poor–the miracle of the loaves and fishes–the reward that is given to all who have clothed the needy in the great parable of the last judgment–all this would prove to us, if any proof were needed, how Christ regarded the giving of the outward. It is not as belittling outward giving that Jesus utters the teaching of our text. On the contrary, it is to reinforce it from a richer and a deeper spring. For when the heart is opened then the hand is opened, and when feelings are stirred the purse is never closed, and when a man so lives as to bestow, the greater he is not likely to begrudge the less. He who gives everything up to the point of money and then refuses to give that, need never think to shelter in this text when he remembers who it was that uttered it. And this I think it right to say in passing, lest any one should pervert this word of Jesus, as if it put any slight on outward charities.

Having thus safeguarded this deep word, the question which I should like to ask is this: why does the giving of that which is within have this primacy in the thought of Christ? There are many considerations I could touch upon, but I shall confine my attention to three.

The Greatness of a Gift Depends on Its Closeness to the Giver

In the first place, I would suggest to you that the giving of that which is within is blessed, because, in a quite peculiar sense, it is the giving of that which is our own.

You all know, friends, that the value of a gift depends largely upon its relation to ourselves. The closer and more vital that relationship the greater the value of the act of giving. When a king in earlier ages gifted lands away, over which his suzerainty was of a shadowy kind, that was not so eloquent of a generous nature as the giving of some palace that he loved; and so always is our giving less or more, not merely according to the greatness of the gift, but according to the place of the gift in the giver’s life. It is a glad thing that God has given us sunshine and fruitful seasons and the rain from heaven. But gladder than all that is this, that God hath given us His only begotten Son. And the infinite preciousness of that great gift, viewed in relation to the Giver of it, is just that the Giver and the gift were one.

Now when a man gives of his wealth, however kindly and generous be the giving, it does not need any argument to prove to you that he has not yet given of his real self. Increase a man’s wealth a thousandfold and he is not necessarily a better man. Strip him swiftly of all his affluence and he is not necessarily a worse man. There is no vital relationship at all between a man’s belongings and himself, for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. But the moment you touch that which is within you see that the case is different at once. You are not dealing now with what is accidental; you are dealing with what is vital and essential. You are dealing with that which makes us what we are, with that which, added to or taken from, might leave us richer or might leave us poorer, but in any case must leave us different. For you may add ten thousand pounds to a man’s capital, and in the sight of God that man is still the same. But let faith, hope and charity be added, and in the sight of God that man is different. And so when we give of that which is within we give out of the depths of our own being; and so are far-off followers of God who gave for us sinners of mankind His only begotten Son.

Channels of Giving from the Heart

Once more the giving of what is within is blessed, because it opens up such an expanse of charity.

When we confine our thought of charity to outward things, there are two results that inevitably follow. The first is that almost of necessity we narrow the channel in which giving flows. Now no one knows better than I do what gladness a gift of money sometimes brings. Even a comparatively trifling gift may make the wilderness blossom as the rose. Some of you good people who live in comfort haven’t the least conception of that side of things. There are hundreds in Glasgow to whom a five pound note would make all the difference in the world. Still, when that is said, and said with most intimate knowledge out of my experience as a pastor, how much there is, my brother, in the humblest life that all your money is powerless to reach. How many needs that money cannot meet, how many wants that money cannot satisfy, how many longings in the humblest heart that money is quite helpless to appease. The poorest has a heart that longs for love, and the heart of the richest can long for nothing more. There are chords that will vibrate to the touch of sympathy that will never vibrate to the touch of coin. And it was just because our Lord and Savior was so alive to the range of human need that He bade us give of that which is within. For he who gives with the hand has but one channel, and he who gives with the heart has fifty channels. He gives of his sympathy and of his loving-kindness; he gives of his happiest sunshine and his tears. He gives of his time which is the stuff of life, and of his thought which is his noblest attribute, and of his prayers when the chamber door is shut, and the heart is reverent, and God is near. Think not that such almsgiving is easy. Christ does not call any man to what is easy. He calls us to what is arduous and toilsome, and very exhausting e’er the day is done. Yet is there no life on earth so glad as the life that is ceaseless in such interior charity, for it is more blessed to give than to receive.

But when we limit the thought of alms to what is outward another result inevitably follows. It follows inevitably from that conception of it that we shut out thousands from the grace of giving. If the only almsgiving be that of substance, if the one valid charity be money, if no liberality deserves the name save the liberal giving of what a man possesses, then all those thousands in our Christian lands who fight their grim and ceaseless fight with poverty are denied the practice of the grace. It is true that the poor are wonderfully kind. Their kindness far outstrips that of the rich. The poor stand by each other and assist each other with a comradeship that is often beautiful. Yet that kindness of the poor entails such sacrifice, and makes such a drain upon the scanty means, that it can never be other than occasional. Multitudes there are in every city who can barely win the necessities of life. They are only too thankful if from a scanty wage they can bring food and clothing for their children. And though these people, as I have said, often show kindnesses that put us all to shame, such kindness from the nature of the case must always be the exception, not the rule. If material charity is to be the rule, then it can only be the rule of the minority. If the giving of means be the one valid giving, then of course there always must be means to give. And hence it follows that if the only almsgiving is the habitual giving of the outward, there are thousands everywhere who are excluded hopelessly from the practice of this grace.

Now, friends, if giving were a hardship we might see in that the ordering of God. But giving, so far from being a hardship, is one of the purest joys in human life. Look at that selfish man who in a generous moment has given a shilling to the beggar in the street. Whether or not it has made the beggar happy, it most undoubtedly has made the donor happy. And if such thoughtless and impulsive giving can bring a secret glow of satisfaction, what must the secret joy be when the giving is that of a thoughtful and prayerful Christian man? He who has missed the joy of liberality has missed one of the purest joys of life. There is no luxury of silk or tapestry that can match the luxury of doing good. And it is incredible, from all we know of God, and from all we have learned of Jesus Christ, that He should exclude thousands from this joy simply because they happen to be poor. But the moment you grasp our text you see that these multitudes are not excluded. The noblest giving, in the eyes of Jesus, is the giving of that which is within. And though a man be very poor he may have a plentiful treasure of the heart, and be a blessing by it and help others by it, in a way that silver and gold could never do. I suppose there is not a Christian worker here but has had some such experience as this. You have gone with some offering of charity to a frail or aged woman. And you have come away so helped and humbled by her trust in God, her patience, and her gratitude that you know you have got far more than you bestowed. You gave to her of that which was without, and for that you shall have the blessing of the Father. For she needed it, and it will cheer her heart, and bring her some little comfort that she lacked. But perhaps she hath exercised the richer almsgiving according to the judgment of the Master, for she hath given of that which is within.

The Perfect Aims Giver

I remark, lastly, that this inward giving is blessed for a reason still more cogent. It is blessed because it brings our lives into such harmony with that of Jesus.

If we were to reckon all that Jesus gave by His giving of the material and outward, I need hardly tell you how sadly we should fail to comprehend the wonder of it ail. We can never forget, it is true, that He fed the hungry, or that once He turned the water into wine. Neither can we forget that His poor band had a bag to hold the offerings for poor. Yet if we sought to measure all that Jesus gave by what He gave of that which was without, how little would we understand of Him! Our blessed Lord was born in a poor home, and lived to the end the life of a poor man. Others may leave fortunes when they die; He left nothing but the seamless garment. Indeed it has been questioned in these latter days, on the ground of certain well-known Gospel incidents, whether our Savior ever handled money. Measured by the test of things without, there are thousands who give far more than Jesus gave. There are men and women who in a single day give more than Jesus gave in His whole ministry. The giving of our Master is unique not in the giving of that which is without, but in the glorious and heavenly lavishness with which He gave that which is within. He gave of His virtue, and the sick were healed; He gave of His sympathy, and sorrowing hearts were comforted. He gave of His joy, and men were glad again; He gave of His peace, and restless hearts were quieted. He gave of His prayers upon the mountain side when the shadows had fallen and His locks were wet with dew, and faith was strengthened and courage was revived, and Satan was baffled of his prey. He gave of His vision of a Father-God, and men who were heavy-laden sang again. He gave of His love to the fallen and the far, and womanhood stole back to women’s hearts. He gave of His life to the last drop of it until its very cup was dashed in fragments, and, because He died for us, we live. That, brethren, is the spirit of Christ, and if any man have not that Spirit he is none of His. May God grant us the joy of spending and of being spent. Ceaselessly and happily and secretly may we give for alms that which is within, for it is more blessed to give than to receive, and he that loseth his life shall save it.

Robert Murray McCheyne

By David Smithers

“It is not how long you live, but how you live that counts.” Robert Murray M’Cheyne was a living example of this often neglected truth. At twenty-three years old he was ordained and inducted into the church of St. Peters at Dundee. At thirty years old he finished his course, dying in the spring of 1843. Like John the Baptist and the Savior Himself, M’Cheyne ushered in Christ’s kingdom in just a few short years. It was during his brief public ministry that Scotland experienced one of its greatest revivals. From 1839-1842 much of Scotland was turned upside down through the Spirit-filled labors of W. C. Burns and Robert Murray M’Cheyne.

For every time M’Cheyne directed men to look at their sins he pointed them ten times to look on Jesus. This was the key to his tender and passionate preaching. To him Christ was not just one of many theological concepts in a message, Christ Jesus was the message! M’Cheyne’s power in the pulpit was the result of his intimate knowledge of Jesus. He could boldly say, “I am better acquainted with Jesus Christ than I am with any man in the world.” Often as he preached the entire congregation was brought to tears. M’Cheyne’s diary and letters describe for us some of these precious meetings. He wrote, “It was like a pent-up flood breaking forth; tears were streaming from the eyes of many, and some fell on the ground groaning and weeping and crying for mercy.” At other times men and women were so overcome with grief and conviction that they literally had to be carried out of the church – “In some areas whole congregations were frequently moved as one man, and the voice of the minister was drowned out by the cries of anxious souls.” M’Cheyne’s voice, eyes and gestures spoke of the tenderness of Christ. It was not Robert Murray M’Cheyne the people saw, it was Jesus. M’Cheyne declared, “A man cannot be a faithful minister, until he preaches Christ for Christ’s sake – until he gives up striving to attract people to himself and seeks only to attract them to Christ.”

Perhaps more powerful than M’Cheyne’s preaching was his praying. To him the prayer closet was a refuge of fellowship, holiness and intercession. M’Cheyne’s diary and letters are replete with examples of his prayerful life. He wrote, “I rose early to seek God, and found Him whom my soul loveth. Who would not rise early to meet such company?” “King Jesus is a Good Master. I have had some sweet seasons of communion with the unseen God which I would not give up for thousands worth of gold and silver.” Only a few months before his death M’Cheyne drew up some considerations concerning “Reformation in Secret Prayer”. “I ought”, said M’Cheyne, “to spend the best hours of the day in communion with God. It is my noblest and most fruitful employment.” It is said that Robert Murray M’Cheyne had a special place in his church where he would pour over the names on the church role and weep with groans of intercession. Though only a young man, M’Cheyne possessed that rarest of jewels; a TRUE shepherd’s heart. M’Cheyne fervently labored among the people of Dundee, as if he somehow knew he would soon die. He was a man motivated by eternity. He wrote, “As I was walking in the fields, the thought came over me with almost overwhelming power, that every one of my flock must soon be in heaven or hell. Oh how I wished that I had a tongue like thunder, that I might make all hear; or that I had a frame like iron, that I might visit every one and say, ‘Escape for thy life! Ah sinner! You little know how I fear that you will lay the blame of your damnation at my door.'”

To love Jesus is to love holiness. Many professing Christians shrink from the message of purity and thus draw back from the Savior they claim to love. Robert Murray M’Cheyne understood the necessity of a holy life. He wrote, “Study holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister, a lover of praise, and pleasure, he has ruined your ministry. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear, and your heart is full of God’s Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin.” Lying upon his deathbed with a raging fever, M’Cheyne lifted his hands in prayer, he exclaimed, “This parish Lord, this people, this whole place.” Robert Murray M’Cheyne ended his life like he lived it, full of fervent prayer.

The Blessing of Brokenness

By Adrian Rogers

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a Man with him until the breaking of the day. And when He saw that He prevailed not against him, He touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as He wrestled with him. And He said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me. And He said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And He said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. – And He blessed him there.” Genesis 32:24-29

We’re going to look at an episode in the life of the patriarch, Jacob. At the time of our story, Jacob was a fugitive and had been running. He’d been in the school of hard knocks for twenty years. He believed in God, but he was out of fellowship with Him. However, we see that God did not love Jacob for what he was, but for what He could make out of him.

Alone With God

Now, God finally had Jacob where He wanted him, alone. It took a while because Jacob didn’t want to be alone. You know when people are running from God, they don’t want to be alone. They don’t want to face themselves, and they don’t want to face God.

But verse twenty-four tells us that finally Jacob was alone, and he had a confrontation with God. I believe with all my heart that the Man Jacob wrestled with was the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. He was face to face with Jesus, and they were in a wrestling match. Now, it wasn’t Jacob wrestling with the Lord, it was the Lord wrestling with Jacob. The Lord started it, and it could have been over very quickly, but the Lord wanted Jacob to prevail. He didn’t want to overcome him. The Lord was trying to do something with this man that He loved so much.

Broken By God

Finally, when they had wrestled all night, the angel touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh and crippled him. Now, when a wrestler’s legs are gone, he can’t do anything. This is the strongest muscle for a wrestler. Jacob was crippled; his final weapon was gone. If all his plans and strength had failed, at least he could have run; but now, he couldn’t even run. God brought him to the place of utter, absolute, complete brokenness and dependence.

Blessed By God

The Angel said to this crippled man, “Let me go.” Ironically, the word “Jacob” means “that which grabs, that which holds.” Jacob was still grasping, but this time, for the first time in his life, he got a hold of the Lord. He said, “Oh God, I need You. God, I will not let you go except You bless me.” God had been waiting to hear those words for so long, and at that moment, something wonderful took place.

The angel asked Jacob for his name. God knew it, but He wanted Jacob to confess his name which further meant “liar, cheater, crook, fraud, schemer, and deceiver.” Then, God gave him a new name, Israel, which means, “a prince of God.” He became a prince with God because he finally came to the end of himself. You see, God wanted to bless Jacob, not hurt him. God crippled him that he might crown him. God broke him that he might bless him.

Do you know why many of us are not yet truly blessed? We have not yet been truly broken. Men throw broken things away, but God never uses anything until he first breaks it. You’ll never show me anybody who has been or will be mightily used of God who has not been broken. There is no blessedness without brokenness.

Leaning on God

The rest of his life, Jacob had to use a crutch. This wasn’t just something that could be fixed and put back. He had to have a staff to lean on. The Bible says in Hebrews 11:21: “By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped leaning upon the top of his staff.” Here he was 147 years old and still leaning. Jacob had finally learned to lean. He realized that he was stronger leaning than he was standing on his own two feet. He worshipped leaning, and that’s the only way you’ll ever worship.

The Lamp

The lamp of thy body is thine eye–Luk 11:34 (R.V.)

Everything We See Depends on the Condition of the Eyes

At first sight this might seem to thoughtful readers a somewhat inappropriate comparison. For a lamp is an organ that distributes light, and the eye an organ that receives it. Put a lamp into a darkened chamber, and the room is lightened by its radiance; but put an eye into that chamber and the darkness still remains. It seems strange at first, to thoughtful readers, that our Lord, who never spoke in foolishness, should compare the eye of the body to a lamp.

But the point of comparison on which the Master seizes is entirely independent of that contrast. His point is that everything we see depends on the condition of the lamp. If a lamp is burning brightly we see things as they are. We recognize the books upon the table, and the photographs upon the wall. But if a lamp be flickering or smoky everything is distorted or obscured, and so, says the Lord, is it with the eye. If you are color-blind you cannot see the glorious redness of the rose. If short-sighted you cannot see the friend who is signaling to you from the hill. If you suffer from impending cataract I may sit on the next chair to you and yet all that you distinguish is a shadow. Still is the rose red, though you cannot see it in your color-blindness. Still is the friend waving on the hill or seated by your side. There is nothing the matter with reality; the pity is that you are seeing badly–the lamp of the body is the eye.

One might illustrate that point from one of the healing miracles of Jesus. I refer to the cure of the blind man in the eighth chapter of St. Mark. When our Lord asked the man if he saw aught, he replied that he saw men as trees walking. Now these men were not trees; they were ordinary and law-abiding citizens. Yet to him they were all specters, threatening and gigantic, just because he was not seeing rightly. The lamp was flickering, and objects were distorted. I do not think he would ever forget that, even when he came to die. He would never be frightened by specters any more, even the grim specter of the grave. He would recall the day when in the village street there were fearsome’ and gigantic forms, and they all sprang from his imperfect vision.

What We See Depends on What We Are

And so passing into deeper regions we detect the truth the Master is proclaiming. He is proclaiming that what we spiritually see really depends on what we are. As the lamp conditions the aspect of the room, so does the inward eye condition everything. We see by life and character, by all that we have made ourselves, by every secret sin that we have cherished, by every battle we have fought and won. There was He, moving in their midst, shining in the splendor of good deeds. He was set on a candlestick, visible, conspicuous, radiant in loveliness of life. Yet some said He was beside Himself, and some that He was a glutton and a wine-bibber, and others that He cast out devils by Beelzebub. They saw by what they were. Bound in their ancient prejudices, angry at being interfered with, eager to justify themselves, convicted of their sin, they described the Carpenter, but could not see the Lord. If any of my readers are like that–if they see the Carpenter but cannot see the Lord–let me ask them, tenderly and quietly, What kind of life have you been living?

The same truth that Jesus uses here to explain the rejection of Himself runs out into every environment, whether of nature or of man. What we see in others ultimately depends on what we are. When the inward lamp is bright we see reality. When it is smoky everything is smutty. The judgments which we pass on other people (and we pass such judgments every day) are always judgments of ourselves. When our Lord said, Judge not that ye be not judged, He was not thinking of an external fiat. He did not mean (as some have taken it) that curses come home to roost. He meant that what we see in other people reveals our real character, and on that is based the judgment of eternity. The lamp of the body is the eye. If the lamp be dim everything is dulled. If the inward eye has a cataract, loveliness itself is but a blur. That is why certain folk could look on Him who was the Altogether Lovely One and only see a glutton and a wine-bibber.

It is just there that our Lord reveals the glory of His nature. Judge Him by what He saw and you touch the tassel of the Son of God. He saw the Kingdom in a mustard-seed, and the adoring woman in a harlot. He saw the solid rock in Simon, and the lover in the son of thunder. He saw in a child the citizen of heaven, in a bit of bread His broken body, in a cup of common wine His sacred blood. If what we see depends on what we are, who shall fathom the glory of the Lord? Never was there a vision such as this, because never was there a nature such as this. The argument from vision has been strangely neglected by the theologians in their proofs of the divinity of Christ. My dear reader, if the eyes of God are like the eyes of the Lord Jesus–if God sees as Jesus saw when He moved across our sinful world–then there is hope for you and me, and we can rise after a hundred failures and hitch our wagon to the star again.

The Holy Spirit Not a Luxury

Bread …. a fish…an egg…the Holy Spirit–Luk 11:11-13

A Gift Bestowed at Salvation

There is a widespread if undefined belief that the act of coming to the Savior is something different in experience from the reception of the Holy Spirit. When anyone accepts the Savior, and closes with Him for salvation, the impelling motive for that step is the longing of the soul for pardon. But there are many who do not realize that in the very act of saving faith there is the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. One hears men called to decide for Christ, as if that were the whole of the transaction. Everything is made to hinge upon decision, as though salvation depended on the will. And many, knowing the weakness of their will, and how difficult it is to keep it steadfast, are deterred from taking the greatn step by their past experience of failure. Every resolve that they have broken weakens them in the hour of the great summons. They recall how they pledged themselves to some amendment, and their will was unequal to the strain of it. So do they very naturally fear that if they make the venture and decide for Christ, sooner or later their will-power will be sapped, and history will just repeat itself.

The Holy Spirit Is Compared with the Necessities of Life

Now it is here that the words of Jesus come with such tremendous reinforcement. To Him the Spirit can only be compared with the very necessities of life. There were many things that must have seemed desirable to the little sons of Galilean fishermen. And the Savior, who loved these little folk, must have been perfectly familiar with their covetings. But the beautiful thing is that it is never with their dream-gifts that our Lord compares the Holy Spirit: it is with the first necessities of life. These little folk saw little meat; meat was a luxury to them. The things they lived on, in their lowly cottages, were bread and fish and eggs. And one must never forget that in talking of the Spirit our Lord deliberately passes by the luxuries, and chooses out things that are essential. For Him the Spirit was not, as it were, a luxury, the choice possession of a favored circle. It was not something that would enrich the life over and above the point of sustenance. Like bread, or fish, or eggs, it was something absolutely indispensable; it was the minimum of filial existence.

The Holy Spirit Is Given at the Beginning of Salvation

In the Book of Acts there is another passage that is charged with the same spiritual significance. It occurs where Paul inquired of certain men, “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?” (Act 19:2). In our English version it reads, “since ye believed”; but that is not the import of the Greek. Paul wants to know if they received the Spirit in the very act and hour of their believing. And behind that question, and dictating it, lies the thought of Jesus in St. Luke, that the Holy Ghost is indispensable. If there were nothing more in deciding for the Lord than a daring action of the human will, every reasonable person would do right in hesitating before he launched into the deep. But Paul knew, just as Jesus knew, that to every true act of saving faith there is immediate response from heaven. The Holy Spirit is not kept for afterwards, any more than bread is kept from hungry children. He is never given in a second blessing, though in a second blessing He may give His fulness. In the first act and exercise of faith God bestows the Spirit that empowers, as surely as He applies the blood that pardons. That was why Paul was so eager to discover if these disciples had made a real surrender. For him the inward power to be victorious was the other side of the initial trust. The Holy Spirit was no added gift to help the struggling saints to fuller holiness. He was like bread to the Galilean fisher-boy, the indispensable minimum of life.

At Salvation the Spirit of Christ Indwells Us

So it follows that to decide for Christ stands quite apart from other acts of will. It is entirely incommensurate with any resolutions of the past. These we made in our own strength. We “screwed our courage to the sticking point.” We summoned up the resources of our will to effect some amendment in our lives. And the issues of these moral efforts, sometimes permanent but often temporary, entirely depended on ourselves. If the will was strong the victory was lasting; if weak, “the clouds returned after the rain.” We were unable to maintain through days of gloom the high decisions of our shining hours. But when, in a conscious exercise of will, we surrender ourselves to the Lord Christ, we instantly open reservoirs of power which are not human but divine. It is not now our will against the world; it is the Spirit of Christ in us against the world. We work out our own salvation, because it is God who works and wills within us. The power we need to be victorious is not given as an added gift. It is conveyed, just because God is faithful, in the initial exercise of trust. Doubtless there are some among my readers who still stand “shivering on the brink.” Depressed by failure in the lesser choices they hesitate to make the greatest. I want to say to them, that when they make the greatest they release energies they never dreamed of when they had no resource but the unaided will. In the very instant of believing, God makes us equal to our problem. In the very action of believing we appropriate the victories of Christ. I can do all things, says the apostle, not through the conquering power of my will, but in Christ (for the Greek is in, not through) who strengtheneth me.

What is Conversion?

By E. Stanley Jones

Jesus said: Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3 KJV) Rabindranath Tagore, the great Indian poet and philosopher, said this passage was the most beautiful passage in the bible.

But what is conversion? Converted comes from “con”, with, and “vertare”, to turn – “to turn with.” The big question in life is, is my face or my back toward Christ? The first step in the new life is to turn your back on the old life and face toward Christ. You do not do that alone – there is the “with”. The moment you throw your will in His direction, He is there with you. He helps you to do what you can’t do – to break with the old life – but that decision to turn around is your decision. There you stand alone and as a free moral being you make the decision alone, severely alone. The moment you make it, however, He is “with” you.

Second . . . we must “become as little children” – acquire a new spirit. You are given a new spirit-the spirit of a little child-you have a fresh beginning with a clean slate. That emancipation from the old guilt, from the consequent sense of inferiority, of estrangement from God, man, yourself, and the universe, is the most important and radical emancipation imaginable. “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” This is an “indeed” freedom – nothing, absolutely nothing is like it. You are not only emancipated from the past you become receptive. A child is receptive. The new spirit is the spirit of receptivity. You can now take life by handfuls and heartfuls and beingfuls. You are no longer struggling with life-you take it open-armed. You are alive to life to your finger tips.

Third . . . we must “enter the kingdom of God” – gain a new sphere of living. Your circumstances will be the same, but you will now live in two worlds at once-the world of physical relationships and the world of the kingdom of God. This inner world makes new the whole outer world. You will do things now from a motive, a new spirit, a new outlook. As one of the most alive Christians I know, says, “The one thing that has changed is your reason for living.” In this “new sphere of living” you supply willingness and He supplies power. Life is no longer alone, struggling, tense, anxious, and uncertain. It is relaxed, released, reassured, and receptive. You are no longer living on the unit principle, but on the co-operative plan.

To sum up: The first step, “the new direction,” is yours; the second step, “the new spirit,” is His; the third step, “the new sphere of living,” is yours and His. This is Conversion.

Conversion may be described in a most striking way. “If any man . . . be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold they (the old things) have become new.” (II Cor. 5:17, ASV) The American Standard Version makes everything clearer. You are a new creature – “old things” have passed away; those “old things” have become “new.”

A psychiatrist came to where I was writing in the Himalayas for the express purpose of surrendering himself to God. It happened on the way when he was still twenty miles away. He describes it, “I was dead tired from sleepless night – tired and upset. When suddenly as I made my surrender to God, my tiredness and frustration dropped away. I was a new man. I came to Sat Tal striding across the mountains as though I had on sevenleague boots. And I have never seen Sat Tal so beautiful before. It was alive with beauty.” He was gay with a divine gaiety. Reconciled with God, he was reconciled with himself, with his body, with his brothers, with nature, with life, and with his psychiatry. Psychiatry was no longer dominant, proud, self-sufficient in its own techniques. Now it had a point from which to work out to life – Christ. It was a servant, no longer a master. All life fell into its place, and all life began to add up to sense and meaning.

In other words, “Conversion is a reaction in which Christ is central.” When you make Christ central you are converted. When self-surrender takes place God moves in from the margin and takes possession of the center. He is no longer “marginal and vague”; He is now “focal and dynamic.” As someone said: “I expose myself to His everything”. Jesus is Lord.

Social Claims Impelling Us to God

Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him–Luk 11:5-6

This Parable Resulted from a Request How to Pray

This parable was spoken to encourage men in the difficult exercise of prayer. Christ had been praying in a certain region, and the disciples, themselves unseen, had been observing Him. They had lighted upon the holy place, where He was rapt in communion with the Father. And when He ceased they did not steal away, nor did they try to excuse their presence there; they cried, “Lord, teach us to pray.” One might argue from such a cry that these men had been ignorant of prayer. To do so would be a great mistake; and it would be an injustice to the twelve. What they felt was, when they saw Jesus praying, that their prayers were unworthy of the name. As they looked at their Master communing with His Father, there was something which told them that this was prayer indeed. And so when He had ceased they turned to Him, feeling as if they had never prayed at all, and they cried “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” It was then that our Lord supplied that form of prayer which has been linked with His name through all the centuries. It was then that He spoke this parable, teaching men to pray and not to faint.

Another’s Need Made Him Pray and Beg

So far we are on familiar ground, for that is evident to every reader. But our text has a suggestion of its own, to which I propose to invite your consideration. When the man left his house to seek for food, it was not his own necessity that urged him. So far as he himself was concerned that night, we have no liberty to infer that he was in want. He had had his supper, and he had gone to rest, with a sufficiency to meet the morning’s need. Had there been but himself to be considered, he would never have begged his neighbor for the loaves. The point to note is that what drove him forth was the unexpected demand on his resources. At midnight there arrived before his door a journeying friend whom night had overtaken. And it was this claim upon his hospitality, a claim that is always sacred to an Eastern, which sent him forth, and made him such a suppliant, that to refuse him was impossible. I do not say that his plea prevailed, just because he was asking for another. Had he been starving, and pleading for himself, his petition might have been equally compelling. But we are looking at the transaction from the petitioner’s side, not from the side of him who was approached, and in that light the simple fact is this, that it was another’s need which made him pray.

He Was Driven by Another’s Need, She by Her Own

That this is not an accidental feature, may be seen if we consider the companion parable. The companion story to the Friend at Midnight is the striking picture of the Unjust Judge (see Luk 18:2-8). There was a judge that feared not God nor man, and a certain poor widow came before him. And she cried out, and she continued crying, “Avenge me of mine adversary.” And you will note how all the features are alike–the persistence, the reluctance to accede–all are identical save this one feature which I have chosen for our meditation. The widow came pleading for herself, and to do so she had a perfect right. Someone had wronged her and she wanted justice; she wanted the wild justice of revenge. But this man was not thinking of himself, nor urging anything in his own interest. The claim which drove him to another’s door was the social claim of hospitality. I think you will admit from that comparison that the feature before us is not there by accident. Our Lord delighted to repeat Himself with beautiful and intentional distinctions. Nay, I shall go farther even than that, and regard this as the key to the whole parable–the fact which determined its conception, the thread round which it crystallized.

Driven to Prayer by the Needs of Others

The teaching of the parable, then, is this, viewed always from the side of the petitioner. We are not only driven to prayer by our own needs; we are driven also by the needs of others. There are times when we are like the widow with the judge. We are driven to God by personal distress. Trouble has come, or sickness, or anxiety; or we are sorely tempted, or in great perplexity. In such seasons how much a man must miss who does not turn for communion to his Father, who never said to any of the seed of Jacob, “Seek ye me,” in vain! That is the personal aspect of devotion. That is its private and individual bearing. For our own souls, in such a world as this, there is no hope at all unless we pray. And yet how ignorant is he of life, and of the complexity of human ties, who would limit to his own private needs the urgent summons to the throne of God! Is it not often because others need us, that we are awakened to our need of God? Is it not because others are leaning upon us, that we are driven to lean on the Eternal? In every relationship of human life large and various demands are made upon us. There are those who trust us; there are those who love us; there are those whose welfare hangs upon our guidance. And who are we, whose hearts are often empty, as empty as was that Eastern home–who are we, in our own poor resource, to meet and satisfy these social claims? It is then that we are driven upon God. We come to Him just because others need us. We come to Him not with our private sorrow, not with our weary and besetting sin. We come for the sake of those who love us so, for the sake of those who trust us and who honor us; for the sake of those committed to our charge; for the sake of all with whom we have an influence.

Let us think, for example, of a mother, whose children are growing to manhood and to womanhood. We shall suppose her to have come out of a Christian home, and to have enjoyed the privilege of Christian upbringing. In all her life there has never been a time in which she did not bow the knee to God. So was she taught when she was yet a child, and the influence of that teaching was determinative. And she had her trials, and her girlish troubles, and perhaps a time when she thought that no one needed her; and all this, as it helped to make her lonely, so did it bring her to the feet of God. Then her life deepened into motherhood. There were the voices of children in the home. And as the children grew, each was a separate problem, for each had a separate nature. Yet every one of them trusted her implicitly, and claimed her love as their peculiar heritage, and never thought of doubting for a moment that she was a pattern of perfect womanhood. And one made large demands upon her patience, and another made large demands upon her intellect. And one with eyes of innocence would look at her, as if he were reading her to the very depths. Until at last, feeling her own helplessness to guide and bless and save these young children, she has been driven to feel her need of God, just because other lives were needing her. Like the Syrophenician woman in the Gospel, she has cried for mercy because she had a daughter. She has knocked at the golden door of grace, because of the lives that were entwined with hers. That is the blessing of social demands, and of all the intertwining of relationships. Others are leaning upon us so hard, that in our poverty we lean on God.

Again we might take an illustration from those who are engaged in social service. We might think of those who are bravely setting out to do something for Glasgow in the name of Christ. There are, I think, two great discoveries made by all who share in that service. The first is how deep is the need of God on the part of those whom they are trying to serve. Ameliorative schemes are not enough. Men know the better, and pursue the worse. You may cleanse the home–you may reform the public-house, and the last state be little better than the first. Sooner or later a man awakes to this–and what is needed, if dark is to be light, is nothing more and nothing less than God, changing the heart and ordering the life. But if the worker lights on that discovery, sooner or later he makes another too. It is not how fallen men need God. It is how utterly he needs God himself. And just in proportion as he serves with blessing, and is trusted and loved by those whom he seeks to raise, will he be driven by his service to his knees, and to that fellowship which is the source of power. It is not always when men fail that they pray best. If they are real men, it is when they succeed. It is when others are trusting them–when eyes are looking to them–when little children are drinking in the teaching. It is when the young men and women in the class think there is no one in the world like their own teacher. It is when a minister feels himself surrounded by a loyal and an earnest people. Who then is sufficient for these things? The friend has come and we have naught to give him. And who are we, so helpless and so sinful, that we should be trusted and used and loved and honored so? it is then that we betake ourselves to God, just because others betake themselves to us. The pressure of other lives upon ourselves is the pressure that drives us to the throne.

Shirking Responsibility Weakens Our Fellowship with God

Now if that be so, we have lit on a great truth; one that is worthy of most careful pondering. It is that if we shirk responsibilities, we weaken our life of fellowship with God. Take the case of the man we are considering. Suppose he had refused to entertain the wayfarer. Suppose he had cried to him “My house is full,” or, “My larder is empty and I cannot have you.” Why, then he would have gone to sleep again, and never would have made that midnight pilgrimage, and never would have beaten at his neighbor’s door, clamoring in necessity for bread. He was responsive to the claims of others, and so was forced to go and beg for help. He was sensitive to the appeals of friendship, and so was he driven forth to be a suppliant. Had he hardened his heart, and played a selfish part, and muttered sleepily “Am I my brother’s keeper?” then there would have been no parable of his eager entreaty for supplies.

Beware of the Temptation in Thinking That Seclusion Would Draw You Closer to God

Now I believe we are all occasionally tempted by a very subtle and insidious temptation. We are tempted to think we might live nearer God if we could free ourselves from social demands. It may be that there are worries in the home. It may be that there are anxieties in business. Or gradually our work for Christ may have so grown, that the burden of it is well-nigh overwhelming. And then it is that the temptation visits us, that, could we only be freed from these demands, prayer would be easier, our life in God be deeper, our fellowship with heaven more sustained. Remember I am not saying a word against the need of seasons of retirement. Sometimes it is good to get away, and be alone with our own hearts and God. But what I do say is, that if one who is much burdened is never driven to God because he is burdened, he is far less likely to approach the throne when the pressure of his burdens is removed. It is God who sends to us the friend at midnight. It is God who determines the bounds of our habitation. It is God who leads us to a growing usefulness with all its deepening responsibility. And if all that does not make us pray, and does not waken us to our need of Him, then, in the hour when we renounce our service, we shall be farther off from blessedness and heaven. Think of what happened in the monasteries, to take an instance from the larger world. Men said, “We want to live with God more wholly,” and they cut the ties which bound them to society. The common result was sloth and bestiality, the very antithesis of all religion; and today the ruins where the ivy clings are the judgment of heaven upon that mistake. They refused to open to the friend at midnight. They shut their ears to the demands of life. They said, “Let us be free from all this trammel, and then we shall certainly be nearer God.” Far better had they served their generation, and played their part, and mingled with humanity, until the burden of it all, weighing them down, had brought them to the everlasting arms.

Thank God for Every Midnight Call

So I close by saying this to you who are taking up the service of the winter. Thank God for every call that reaches you. Thank Him for the opportunity of toil. The hour may come for you when it is midnight, just as it came to the host in our parable. The hour may come when heart and flesh are weary, and hope is dim, and courage is decayed–and in that very hour, for aught I know, the hand may be heard knocking at the door. But if these claims awake you to your weakness, and make you feel anew your need of God; if they send you out from your own self-sufficiency to lean upon His grace and on His love; why then, my brother, all your happy holiday, and all your remembrances of the purple heather, will not be such a blessing to your heart as the burden and the service of today. “Commit your way to the Lord …. and he shall bring it to pass.” Come now, and cast your burden on the Lord. Take up your service, whether in church or city, no matter how impoverished you feel. There is One whose store is always overflowing, and He is willing to give you of His best; and men will be blest in you and call you blessed, just because they make you lean on God.

Divine Wisdom

By A.W. Pink

From Studies in the Scriptures Publication: August, 1939

So extremely desperate was the Fall of man, that it required the infinite and unsearchable wisdom of God Himself to find out a remedy against it. If the Lord should have proceeded thus far in mercy towards man and no farther–Thou art a wretched creature, and I am a righteous God; yea, so heavy is My wrath and so woeful thy condition, that I cannot choose but take compassion upon thee; and therefore I will put the matter into thine own hands. Requisite it is that My pity towards thee should not swallow up the respects to Mine own justice and honour, that My mercy should be a righteous and a wise mercy. Consult therefore together all ye children of men, and invent a way to reconcile My justice to one and another; set Me in a course to show you mercy without parting from Mine own right and denying the righteous demands of Mine offended justice, and I will promise you to observe it. I say, if the mercy of the Lord should have confined itself within these bounds, and referred the method of our redemption unto human discovery, we should forever have continued in a desperate state, everlastingly unable to conceive or so much as in fancy to frame unto ourselves a way of escape.

As the creatures before their being could have no thought or notion of their being educed out of nothing which they were before, so man fallen could not have the smallest conjecture or suspicion of any feasible way to deliver himself out of that misery into which he fell. If all the learning in the world were gathered into one man, and that man should employ all his time and study to frame unto himself the notions of a sixth or seventh sense, he would be as totally ignorant of the conclusion he sought at last as he was at first. For all human knowledge of natural things is wrought by a reflection upon those ideas which are impressions made from those senses we already use, and are indeed nothing else but a kind of notional existence of things in the memory of man wrought by an external and sensible perception of that real existence which they have in themselves.

And yet in this case a sixth or seventh sense would agree in genere proximo, and so have some kind of cognition with those we already enjoy. But a new covenant, a new life, a new faith, a new salvation, are things toto genere beyond the strain and sphere of nature. That two should become one, and yet remain two still, as God and man do in one Christ; that He who maketh should be one with the thing which Himself hath made; that He who is above all should humble Himself; that He who filleth all should empty Himself; that He who blesseth all should be Himself a curse; that He who ruleth all should be Himself a servant; that He who was the Prince of Life, by whom are all things and all things subsist, should Himself be dissolved and die; that mercy and justice should meet together, and kiss each other; that the debt should be paid, and yet pardoned; that the fault should be punished and yet remitted; that death like Samson’s lion should have life and sweetness in it, and be used as an instrument to destroy itself; these and the like evangelical truths are mysteries which surpass the reach of all the princes of learning in the world. They are to be believed by a spiritual light, which was not so much as possible to a human reason.–Edward Reynolds, 1648.

“Lord when we bend before Thy throne
And our confessions pour,
Teach us to feel the sins we own
And hate what we deplore.
Our broken spirits pitying see,
True penitence impart,
Then let a kindly flame from Thee
Beam hope on every heart.
When we disclose our wants in prayer
May we our will resign
And not a thought our bosoms share
That is not wholly Thine.
May faith each weak petition fill
And raise it to the skies,
And teach our hearts ’tis goodness still
That grants it, or denies.”
–Edward Bickersteth.

Mortified Eyes

By A.W. Pink

From Studies in the Scriptures Publication: November, 1939

“Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity: quicken Thou me in Thy way” (Psa. 119:37). The first request is for the removing of impediments to obedience, the other for addition of new degrees of grace. These two are fitly joined, for they have a natural influence upon one another: unless we turn away our eyes from vanity, we shall soon contract a deadness of heart. When our affections are alive to other things, they are dead to God; therefore the less we let loose our hearts to these things, the more lively and cheerful the work of obedience. On the other side, the more the vigour of grace is renewed and the habits of it quickened into actual exercise, the more is sin mortified and subdued.

1. It therefore concerns those that would walk with God to have their eyes turned away from worldly things. He that would be quickened, carried out with life and vigour in the ways of God, must first be mortified, die unto sin. Speaking of the fruits of Christ’s death, the Apostle mentioned death unto sins before life unto righteousness (1 Peter 2:25). If any would live with Christ, first they must learn to die unto sin. It is impossible for sin and grace to thrive in the same subject.

2. One great means of mortification is guarding the senses–eyes and ears, taste and touch–that they may not betray the heart. I put it so general because the man of God that is so solicitous about his eyes would not be careless of his ears and other senses. We must watch on all sides. When an assault is made on a city, if one gate be open it is as good as if all were. The ingress and egress of sin is by the senses, and much of our danger lies there. There are many objects that agree with our distempers, and by them insinuate themselves into the soul, and therefore things long since seemingly dead will soon revive again and recover life and strength. There are no means to keep the heart unless we keep the eye. In every creature Satan has laid a snare for us, to steal away our hearts and affections from God. The senses are so ready to receive these objects from without to wound the heart, for they are as the heart is. If the heart be poisoned with sin, and became a servant to it, so are the senses of our bodies “weapons of unrighteousness” (Rom. 6:13). Objects have an impression upon them answerable to the temper and affections of the soul, and what it desires they pitch upon; and therefore if we let the senses wander, the heart will take fire.

3. Above all senses the eye must be guarded. First, because it is the noblest sense, given us for high uses. There is not only a natural eye to inform us of things profitable and hurtful for the natural man, but a spiritual use to set before us those objects that may stir us and raise our minds to heavenly meditations. By beholding the perfection of the creature we may admire the more eminent perfection of Him that made them: “the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork” (Psa. 19:1). “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhood” (Rom. 1:20). The perfections of the creature are to draw us to God, and its defects to drive us from themselves. The eye, as it is used, will either be a help or a snare: either it will let in the sparks of temptation, or enkindle the fire of true devotion. These are the windows which God has placed in the top of the building, that man from there may contemplate God’s works and take a prospect of Heaven.

Second, because the eyes have a great influence upon the heart either to good or evil, but chiefly to evil. In this corrupt state of man, by looking we come to liking, and are brought inordinately to affect what we do behold. “Seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye used to go a whoring” (Num. 15:39). “If my step hath turned out of the way, and my heart walk after mine eyes” (Job 31:7). These are the spies of the heart–brokers to bring it and the temptation together; the eye sees, and then by gazing the heart lusts, and the body acts the transgression. It is more dangerous to see evil than to hear it.–Thomas Manton, 1660.

Christ and Worry

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful–Luk 10:41-42

Seizing upon the Essential

These words, you will remember, are taken from the brief description of the well-known scene in the home of Martha and Mary at Bethany. And few episodes, even in the Gospel narrative, are more familiar to us than this. What wonderful artists the sacred writers are! They know how to paint with just the few absolutely essential and perfectly correct strokes. There is not one too many, and not one is out of place. Here we have a home, a scene in that home, two characters, and a wealth of teaching from the Lord Jesus, all sketched in and made to live before our eyes and in our memories within the space of just five verses. What a rebuke to our prolixity!

We might have taken a whole chapter to describe what is here told in twenty lines, and we should probably have left the reader with a far less vivid and a far less correct impression. The very form of the narrative teaches us the chief lesson it contains–the importance of seizing upon the essential, and how comparatively few of the things we are apt to consider necessary really are so. It is upon choosing the really essential things in life, and in laying stress upon these, that true welfare depends.

A Divided Mind

How clearly, how vividly we see Martha, the good-hearted, bustling, over-anxious mistress and very-much-manager of the household! She is so very busy about so very many things; and all the time she is firmly convinced in her own mind that all she does and all she would provide is absolutely necessary. Not one of all this multitude of things must be wanting. Custom, and her own reputation in her own eyes and among her neighbors, demand them ail. The amount of mental and physical energy which she consumed in providing and preparing and arranging the “many things” which she deemed necessary, she probably never computed, nor did she stay for a moment to consider whether she had forgotten one or two things which in intrinsic worth might be of far greater value than the sum total of all the other things about which she was busying herself. Her mind was too divided to think clearly: part of it was running on this thing and part on that, and yet another part on something else; and her bodily movements were a reflection of her mental ones. As we say, she was all the time in a bustle, running here and there, anxious, distracted, worried; and because she was so, she was much inclined to blame others, even the Lord Jesus, who were really guiltless of the cause of her unhappiness.

Contrast her with her sister Mary, to whom the opportunity–a short one, and one which would quickly pass–of sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus and listening to Him outweighed in importance everything else at the moment. Besides making the most of this opportunity, just then nothing else mattered. And very probably Mary had a far keener insight into the mind of the Great Teacher, who was there for so short a time, than had the anxious and worried, if kind-hearted, Martha.

What Is Real Hospitality?

When guests enter our house it is right that we should seek to provide them with all that they can need; we would go further, and would offer them what we believe will give them the greatest pleasure. We say to ourselves that we hope they will enjoy their sojourn with us. But do we ever ask in what the true enjoyment of our most worthy guests consists? Do we not too often see their pleasures only through our own eyes, and decide, according to the accepted standards of the conventional which rule us, what they ought to enjoy, rather than take the trouble to enter into their feelings? Is there not often at least a measure of pride, a desire to give ourselves satisfaction, in the nature of the hospitality which we offer? How often when we have been the guests of others would not some of us have gladly given up three-fourths of what was set before us to eat and to drink in exchange for half-an-hour’s quiet conversation with some thoughtful person in the neighborhood we were visiting! For then we could have enjoyed that refreshment of soul, that stimulus of a mind greater and richer than our own, which the busy often need far more than mere bodily satisfaction.

May not Jesus have felt something of this that day in the home at Bethany? He lived a busy life, and His interests were centered on a great purpose–to influence others, to teach them the precious truths He had come to reveal. He would know Mary’s anxiety to learn, that she might impart what she had learned to other women. To help her in this high purpose would be to Jesus far greater enjoyment than to partake of all the material things Martha was so anxiously providing. And, besides, by her bustling to and fro, Martha was actually preventing those few minutes of quiet so precious to Jesus and to Mary His disciple.

Are We Doing the Usual or the Right Thing?

Martha, like a great many well-meaning people today, was evidently the slave of convention, and to do what was the fashion was, in her eyes as in the opinion of so many, to do the “right” thing. Is it not true that the majority of people who wish to be hospitable, and to show kindness and honor and respect, simply ask themselves what, under the circumstances, is the usual thing to do? For in their opinion the usual is only another term for the right thing. They would do what fashion demands. But fashion is a hard taskmaster. He runs up many accounts, but does he pay many bills? And what does being in the fashion too often mean? Does it not mean obtaining and displaying and using what those who are richer than ourselves possess? It too often means a display (at the cost of much labor and anxiety) of our possession of the material things of life. And then the greater part of both our time and our energy must be directed towards these things–towards obtaining and displaying and taking care of them. We must remember that all material things are to be sought and are useful just in so far as, and no further than, they minister to the higher life. A comfortable, well-ordered, healthy house will so minister; but the moment the house and its contents become an end, rather than a means to an end, the true order of importance has been reversed. A sufficiency of plain and wholesome food ministers to the higher life, for in health we can think more clearly, work harder, and be more useful to others; but the moment the care for eating and drinking goes beyond this, the true order of things has been lost. Once more, a reasonable amount of recreation ministers to the usefulness of life, for it also promotes and tends to maintain health, and so the powers of usefulness; but when energy is consumed in providing the means for expensive amusements (often because these are fashionable), and when much time is consumed in taking part in them, in this case also a sense of proportion has been lost. The “judgment values” of life, upon whose correctness so much depends, are in all these cases false. It is still only too frequently true that in being so anxious about the means of living we often deprive ourselves of the opportunity for life itself.

Our Lord says, “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things: but a few things are needful.” And in Gal 5:1 St. Paul says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” And these words of St. Paul’s seem extremely applicable to the subject before us; for Christ has, if we have accepted the liberty He has given us, set us free from “many things.” But have we fulfilled, are we fulfilling, the conditions of that liberty? Are we not rather the slaves of many a worldly conventionality which causes us far more worry and far greater anxiety than we would care to confess? Does not Christ tell us that it was “for judgment that He came into the world”? And the function of judgment is to give right decisions, and, among these, correct estimates of intrinsic value. Thus Christ will help us to decide upon the true value of many possessions and many objects of anxious effort upon which our own judgments are often seriously at fault.

In one place Christ speaks with great plainness upon the subject. In the Parable of the Sower He tells us that some of the seed–and by the seed is meant that which contains the principle of the higher life, that which is essential to the development of that life–some of the seed fell among the thorns. These thorns represent “the anxieties, riches, and pleasures of this life,” which grow and choke the seed and render it unfruitful. The very order of these evils is suggestive; first anxieties, then riches, then pleasures. How anxious some people seem to be not merely to have enough, but to be rich, and that in order to be able to enjoy what are by convention regarded as the pleasures of this world, but which all the time are a cause of weariness of soul to many who participate in them, and in the meanwhile there is no bringing what should be the true fruit of life to perfection.

Think of the contrast between freedom in and through Christ, and of slavery to the conventions, the fashions of the world. As redeemed by Christ, as free in Him, we ought to enjoy the fullest opportunity for the development of the highest life; but actually this is too often prevented by the slavery which I have been describing. How then can we enjoy the freedom which Christ has potentially won for us? Christ is the Light of the World; He is also the Wisdom of God and the Power of God.

Only One Thing Is Needful

The secret of the highest and purest success in life lies in the ability first to choose and then to make effort after those things which are of really greatest worth. Of course, together with this choice, there must be a ceasing to strive after things of no intrinsic or permanent value. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Now ability to choose rightly, and also to obtain, implies the possession of all the three qualities of Christ which I have just mentioned, namely, Light, Wisdom, and Power.

These we may obtain from Him; and before we can use them we must obtain them. By means of light we see things as they are; we discern their real nature, we can estimate their relative greatness or smallness. Only in the light, only, that is, in possession of the completest knowledge available, must we choose and select. This selection also implies skill, which is the true meaning of wisdom. The truly wise man is the man who can both choose and use skillfully. Christ’s wisdom is seen in His choices, in His decisions. The proof of His wisdom is seen in the results of these. Christ chooses, and He teaches us to choose those things which are of permanent value and which satisfy the highest parts of our nature. Our want of wisdom is seen in our frequent rejection of these things for objects which give only a very temporary satisfaction, and that only to the lower part of our nature.

But in addition to light or knowledge, in addition also to choice or decision, we need power. We need power to do what we know we ought to do and have chosen to do. Remember St. Paul’s words, “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”

Light, wisdom, power are three conditions of freedom–of the freedom which, as a possibility, Christ has won for us. To obtain them we must possess Him. He is the One needful; they are the few things needful. Possession and use of these will prevent that worry which wears out life, that distraction which, in its endless seeking after things of comparatively little value, destroys even its own object. In its constant search after what it considers necessary as means of living it forgets life itself.

Just There

A certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was–Luk 10:33

The Lord Himself as a Good Samaritan

Our Lord, true poet that He was, had a great liking for pictorial teaching, and in all the pictures of His gallery none is more remarkable than this one. The scene, familiar to them ail; the robbery, an occurrence they all dreaded; the ecclesiastics whom they knew so well; the Samaritan, whom they all despised–these made a glowing vivid picture, which nobody but a master could have painted, and nobody but the Master ever did. It is a beautiful etching of benevolence, and as such it is immortal. But men have loved, right down the ages, to find in it something more than that. They have loved to find in this Samaritan a delineation of the Lord Himself, in His infinite compassion for mankind. Many thoughts come leaping to the mind when we set the story in the light of Christ. This Samaritan was long in coming. He had everything the man required (Luk 10:34). But there is another beautiful feature in his pity that is so eminently true of Christ that we do well to dwell on it a little.

As the Samaritan, so the Lord Came Where He Was

Than feature is that the Samaritan came just where the man was–came right up to him, and handled him, where he lay battered on the hedge-bank. When he saw, as he came down the hill, that in the hollow yonder there had been a struggle–when he saw that battered figure by the road, with the robbers probably in concealment, how naturally he might have halted till some Roman convoy had come up; but, says Jesus, he came just where he was. I feel sure our Lord intended that. Christ was unrivalled in suggestive phrase. The Priest saw him; the Levite looked at him; the Samaritan came right up where he was. How perfectly that exquisite touch applies to the Lord, who was the teller of the story, in His infinite compassion for mankind!

It Was He Himself Who Came

Think for a moment of the Incarnation. Tell me, what was the Incarnation? It was the Son of God, seeing the need of man, and coming in infinite mercy where he was. Not speaking as by a trumpet from high heaven; not casting down a scroll out of eternity; not sending Gabriel or any of the angels to proclaim the loving fatherhood of God. No, this is the glory of the Incarnation, that when man was bruised and battered by his sin, Christ, the Son of God, the good Samaritan, came just where he was. He came to the inn, where the travelers were drinking; to the cottage, where the mother prayed; to the village, where the children romped; to the fields, where happy lovers wandered. He came to the marriage feast and to the funeral; to the crowded city and the sea; He came to the agony and to the cross. Show me where folk are lying ill at home, and I can show you Jesus there. Show me where men are tempted of the devil, and I can show you Jesus there. Show me where hearts are crying out in darkness, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and the beautiful and amazing thing is this–that I can show you Jesus there. Where man has suffered, Jesus Christ has suffered. Where man has toiled, Jesus Christ has toiled. Where man has wept, Jesus Christ has wept. Where man has died, Jesus Christ has died. He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, and made His grave with the wicked in His death. The good Samaritan has come .just where he was.

Contrasted with John the Baptist

And when we follow the footsteps of the Lord, does not the same thing at once arrest us? Why, that is just what the people marked in Christ, when they contrasted Him with John the Baptist. If you wanted John, you had to search for John. You had to leave the city and go into the wilderness. And there, “far from the haunts of men,” was John the Baptist, a solitary figure. But Christ was genial, kindly, and accessible, a lover of the haunts of men, the friend of publicans and sinners. Simon Peter was busy with his nets, and Christ came where he was. Matthew was seated at the receipt of custom, and Christ came to him. The poor demoniac was in the graveyard, there to be exiled till he died, and the glorious thing about our good Samaritan is that He came exactly where he was. Where is that bright girl from Jairus’ home? We have been missing her happy smile these days. Where is Lazarus? We used to see him daily. Is he ill? We never see him now. Where are the spirits who were disobedient at the time the ark was a-pre-paring? I know not; I only know of each of them that Christ came where he was. Go to the penitent thief upon the cross, and tell him there is someone who can save him. Only he must come down, and leave the city, and fly to the wilderness and he will find him. There are many who offer paradise on these terms when men are powerless and cannot move a finger; but Christ came where he was. That is exactly what He is doing still. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. No one needs to fly away to find Him. The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth. “Just as I am,” is a very gracious hymn: but I want someone to write me another hymn: “Just where I am, O Lamb of God, You come.”