Part 1: Absolute surrender

“And Benhadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it.

And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Benhadad,

Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine.

And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have.”

(1 Kings 20:1-4)

What Ben Hadad asked was absolute surrender; and what Ahab gave was what was asked of him – absolute surrender. I want to use these words “My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have,” as the words of absolute surrender with which every child of God ought to yield himself to his Father. We have heard it before, but we need to hear it very definitely – the condition of God’s blessing is absolute surrender into His hands. Praise God! If our hearts are willing to do that, there is no end to what God will do for us, and to the blessing God will bestow.

People often say that they are devoted or committed to the Lord, but God wants an absolute surrender from us. If we are devoted or committed to the Lord, we’re basically saying “I will give this much, Lord, but no more!” When you surrender to God, you give Him everything. We all need to ask ourselves the pointed question: Am I willing to surrender all to God? Many have answered this question with a “yes”, then some have surrendered all whilst others have failed to do so, feeling condemned because they did not find the secret of the power to live that life. May God have a word for all!

God claims it from us

It has the foundation of the very nature of God. God cannot do otherwise. Who is God? He is the Fountain of life, the only Source of existence and power and goodness, and throughout the universe there is nothing good but what God works. God has created the sun, the moon and the stars, and the flowers, and the trees, and the grass; are they not all absolutely surrendered to God? Do they not allow God to work in them just what He pleases? When God clothes the lily with its beauty, is it not yielded up, surrendered, given over to God as He works in it its beauty? And God’s redeemed children, oh, can you think that God can work His work if there is only half or part of us surrendered? God cannot do it. God is life, and love, and blessing, and power, and infinite beauty, and God delights to communicate Himself to every child who is prepared to receive Him; but ah! this one lack of absolute surrender is just the thing that hinders God. And now He comes, and as God, He claims it.

You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing, and that pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another holds it partly, I cannot write write properly. This coat is absolutely given up to me to cover my body. The church building is entirely given up to religious services. And now, do you expect that in your immortal being, in the divine nature that you have received by regeneration, God can work His work, every day and every hour, unless you are entirely given up to Him? God cannot. The Temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered to God when it was dedicated to Him. And every one of us is a temple of God, in which God will dwell and work mightily on one condition – absolute surrender to Him. God claims it, God is worthy of it, and without it God cannot work His blessed work in us. But, second, God not only claims it, but

God will work it Himself

I am sure there is many a heart that says “Ah, but that absolute surrender implies so much!” Someone says: “Oh, I have passed through so much trial and suffering, and there is so much of the self-life still remaining, and I dare not face the entire giving of it up, because it will cause so much trouble and agony.”

Alas that God’s children have such thoughts of Him, such cruel thoughts. Oh, I come to you with a message, fearful and anxious ones. God does not ask you to give the perfect surrender in your own strength, or by the power of your will; God is willing to work it in you. Do we not read: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure“ (Philippians 2:13) And that is what we should seek for – to go on our faces before God, until our hearts learn to believe that the everlasting God Himself will come in to turn out what is wrong, to conquer what is evil, and to work out what is well-pleasing in His blessed sight. God Himself will work it in you.

The third thought. God not only claims it and works it, but

God accepts it when we bring it to Him

God works it in the secret of our heart, God urges us by hidden power of His Holy Spirit to come and speak it out, and we have to bring and to yield to Him that absolute surrender. But remember, when you come and bring God that absolute surrender, it may, as far as your feelings and consciousness go, be a thing of great imperfection, and you may doubt and hesitate and say: “Is it absolute?” But remember there was once a man to whom Christ said: “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” (Mark 9:23) And his heart was afraid, and he cried out: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” That was a faith that triumphed over the devil, and the evil spirit was cast out. And if you come and say: “Lord, I yield myself in absolute surrender to my God,” even though it be with a trembling heart and with the consciousness: “I do not feel the power, I do not feel the determination, I do not feel the assurance,” it will succeed. Be not afraid, but come just as you are, and even in the midst of your trembling, the power of the Holy Ghost will work.

A fourth thought. God not only claims it, and works it, and accepts it when we bring it, but

God maintains it

That is the great difficulty with many. People say: “I have often been stirred at a meeting, or at a convention, and I have consecrated myself to God, but it has passed away. I know it may last for a week or for a month, but away it fades, and after a time it is all gone.” But listen! It is because you do not believe what I am going to tell you and remind you of. When God has begun a the work of absolute surrender in you, and when God has accepted your surrender, then God holds Himself bound to care for it and to keep it. Will you believe that?

In the matter of surrender there are two parties; God and I. I – a worm, God – the everlasting and omnipotent >J>ehova. Worm, will you be afraid to trust yourself to this mighty God now? God is willing. Do you not believe that He can keep you continually, day by day, and moment by moment?

“Moment by moment, I’m kept in His love; moment by moment I’ve life from above”

If God allows the sun to shine upon you moment by moment, without intermission, will not God let His life shine upon you every moment? And why have you not experienced it? Because you have not trusted God for it, and you do not surrender yourself absolutely to God in that trust.

The last thought. This absolute surrender to God

Will wonderfully bless us

When Ahab says to his enemy, king Ben Hadad “My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have”, shall we not say it to our God and loving Father? If we do say it, God’s blessing will come upon us. God wants us to be separate from the world; we are called to come out from the world that hates God, and say: “Lord, anything for Thee.” If you say that with prayer, and speak that into God’s ear, He will accept it, and He will teach you what it means.

I say it again, God will bless you. You have been praying for blessing. But do remember, there must be absolute surrender. At every tea-tableyou see it. Why is tea poured into that cup? Because it’s empty, and given up for tea. But put ink, or vinegar, or wine into it, and will they pour tea into the vessel?  And can God fill you, can God bless you if you are not absolutely surrendered to Him? He cannot. Let us believe God has wonderful blessings for us, if we but stand up for God, and say, be it with a trembling will, yet with a believing heart: “O God, I accept Thy demands. I am thine and all that I have have. Absolute surrender is what my soul yields to Thee by divine grace.”

You may not have such strong and clear feelings of deliverance as you would desire to have, but humble yourself in His sight, and knowledge that you have grieved the Holy Spirit by your self-will, self-confidence, and self-effort. Bow humbly before Him in he confession of that, and ask Him to break the heart to bring you into the dust before Him. Then, as you bow before Him, just accept God’s teaching that in your flesh “there dwelleth no good thing,” and that nothing will hep you except another life which must come in. You must deny self once and for all. Denying self must every moment be the power of your life, and then Christ will come in and take possession over you.

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Part 2: “The fruit of the Spirit is love”

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

I want to look at the face of a life filled with the Holy Spirit more from the practical side, and to show how this life will show itself in our daily walk and conduct.

Under the Old Testament you know the Holy Spirit often came upon men as a divine Spirit of revelation to reveal the mysteries of God, or for power to do the work of God. But He did not then dwell in them. Now, many just want the Old Testament gift of power for work, but know very little of the New Testament gift of the indwelling Spirit, animating and renewing the whole life. When God gives the Holy Spirit, His great object is the formation of a holy character. It is a gift of a holy mind and spiritual disposition, and what we need above everything else, is to say: “I must have the Holy Spirit sanctifying my whole inner life if I am to really live for God’s glory!”

You might say that when Christ promised the Spirit to the disciples,  He dis so that they might have power to become witnesses. True, but then they reveived the Holy Spirit in such heavenly power and reality that He took possession of their whole being at once and so fitted them as holy men for doing the work with power as they had to do it. Christ spoke of power to the disciples, but it was the Spirit filling their whole being that worked the power.

Let’s go to the passage of Galatians 5:22 as listed above. “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” We read that “Love is the fulfilling of the Law,” (Romans 13:10) and I want to mention love as a fruit of the Spirit with a twofold object. One is that this word may be a searchlight in our hearts, and give us a test by which to try all our thoughts about the Holy Spirit and all our experience of the holy life. Let us try ourselves by this word. Has this been our daily habit, to seek the being filled with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of love? “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” Has it become our experience that the more we have of the Holy Spirit, the more loving we become? In claiming the Holy Spirit we should make this the first object of our expectation. The Holy Spirit comes as the Spirit of love.

One of the great causes why God can not bless His Church is the want of love. When the body is divided, there cannot be strength. Remember that if a vessel that ought to be one whole is cracked into many pieces, it cannot be filled. May the Lord melt us together into one by the power of the Holy Spirit; let the Holy Spirit do His blessed work through us. Give yourself up to love, and the Holy Spirit will come; receive the Spirit, and He will teach you to love more.

Now; why is it that the fruit of the Spirit is love?

1. Because God is love

It is the very nature of Godto delight in communicatingHimself. God has no selfishness, God keeps nothing to Himself. God’s nature is to be always giving. In the sun and the moon and the stars, in every flower you see it, in every bird in the air, in every fish of the sea. God is love, and He imparts His brightness and His blessedness to all His creation.

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).

2. So He can restore love to this world

When man sinned, why was it that he sinned? Selfishness triumphed – he sought himself instead of God. And look! Adam at once begins to accuse the woman of having led him astray. Love to God had gone, love to man was lost. Look again: of the first two children of Adam, one becomes the murderer of his own brother. God gives His scarificial love to us, hoping that we will spread that special love in this sinful world.

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).

3. Because nothing but love can expel and conquer our selfishness

Self is the great curse, whether in its relation to God, or to our fellow man in general, or to fellow Christians, thinking of ourselves Christ came to redeem us from self. We sometimes talk about deliverance from the self-life – and thank God for every word that can be said about it to help us – but I am afraid some people think deliverance from the self-life means that they now are going to have no longer any trouble of serving God; and they forget that deliverance from self-life means to be a vessel overflowing with love to everybody all day… A person filled with God’s love – who is unselfishly following the Lord – is easily recognized.

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).

4. Because without this we cannot live the daily life of love

In dealing with daily living, we encounter problems like temper, and contolling our tongue. If you are angry at people or flap your mouth with nasty gossip or foul language, you are revealing that you don’t live the daily life of love. Once again, if we live in accordance to God’s Word and live in His love, people will see that love. That is one of the things that compelled me to want to be a Christian. I saw God’s love shared, and I knew that I did not possess such love. Only when we are close to God can we display such love, and His perfect love shines through for others to see. We are made perfect in His love.

“No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12).

5. Because the Spirit will exhibit the divine power that God can give to His children

In the second and the fourth chapter of Acts we read that the disciples were of one heart and of one soul. During the three years they had walked with Christ, they had never been in that spirit. All Christ’s teaching could not make them of one heart and one soul. But the Holy Spirit came from Heaven and shed the love of God in their hearts, and they were of one heart and one soul. The same Holy Spirit that brought the love of Heaven into their heartsmust fill us too. Nothing less will do. Even as Christ did, one might preach love for three years with the tongue of an angel, but that would not teach any man to love unless the power of the Holy Spirit should come upon him to bring the love of Heaven into his heart.

6. Because this is the only power in which Christians can do their work

Yes, it is what we need! We want not only love that is to bind us to each other, but we want a divine love in our work for the lost around us. Oh, we do not often undertake a great deal of work, just as  men undertake work of philantrophy (to improve the well-being of human kind), from a natural spirit of compassion for our fellow men? Do we not often undertake Christian work because  our minister or friend calls us to it? And do we not often preform Christian work with a certain zeal but without having had a baptism of love?

People often ask: “What is the baptism of fire?” I know no fire like the fire of God, the fire of everlasting love that consumed the sacrifice on Calvary. The baptism of love is what the church needs, and to get that we must begin at once to get down upon our faces before God in confession and plead: “Lord, let love from Heaven flow down into my heart. I am giving up my life to pray and live as one who has given himself up for the everlasting love to dwell in and fill him.”

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Part 3: Separated to the Holy Ghost

“Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 

As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.

And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus.” (Acts 13:1-4)

In the story of our text we shall find some precious thoughts to guide us as to what God would have of us, and what God would do for us. The great lesson of the verses quoted is this; The Holy Ghost is the director of the work of God upon the earth. And what we should do if we are to work rightly for God, and if God is to bless our work, is to see that we stand in a right relationship to the Holy Ghost, that we give Him every day the pplace of honour that belongs to Him, and that in all our work and (what is more) in all  our private inner life, the Holy Ghost shall always have the first place. Let me point out to you some of the precious thoughts our passage suggests.

First of all, we see that God has His own plans with regard to His kingdom. His church at Antioch had bee established. God had certain plans and intentions with regard to Asia, and with regards to Europe. He had conceived them; they were His, and He made them known to His servants.

Our great Commander organizes every campaign, and His generals and officers do not always know the great plans. They often receive sealed orders, and they have to wait on Him for what He gives them as orders. God in Heaven has wishes, and a will, in regard to any work that ought to be done, and to the way in which it has to be done. Blessed is the man who gets into God’s secrets and works under God.

God has His workers and His plans clearly mapped out, and our position is to wait, that God should communicate to us as much of His will as each time is needful. We have simply to be faithful in obedience, carrying out His orders. God has a plan for His church, but too often we make our own plans, making feeble efforts to do His work for Him. God has planned for His work, and the Holy Ghost has had that work given in charge to Him. “The work whereunto I have called them.”

The second thought is that God is willing and able to reveal to His servants what His will is. Yes, blessed be God , communications still come down from Heaven! As we read here what the Holy Ghost said, so the Holy Ghost will still speak to His church and His people. In these later days He has often done it. He has come to individual men, and by His divine teaching He has led them out into fields of labour that others could not at first understand or approve, into ways and methods that did not recommend themselves to the majority. But the Holy Ghost does still in our time teach His people. Thank God, in our foreign missionary societies and in our home missions, and in a thousand forms of work, the guiding of the Holy Ghostis known, but (we are all ready, I think, to confess) too little known. We have not learned enough to wait upon Him, and so we should make a solemn declaration before God: O God, we want to wait more for Thee to show us Thy will.

Often we ask: How can a person know the will of God? And people want, when they are in perplexity, to pray very earnestly that God should answer them at once. But God can only reveal His will to a heart that is humble and tender. God can only reveal His will in perplexities and special difficulties to a heart that has learned to obey and honour Him loyally in little thinhgs and in daily life.

That brings me to the third thought – Note the disposition to which the Spirit reveals God’s will. What do we read here? there were a number of men ministering to the Lord and fasting, and the Holy Ghost came and spoke to them. Some people understand this passage very much as they would in reference to a missionary committee of our day. We see there is an open field, and we have had our missions in other fields, and we are going to get on to that field. We have virtually settled that, and we pray about it. But the position was a very different one in those former days. I doubt whether any of them thought of Europe, for later on even Paul himself assayed to go back into Asia, till the night vision called him by the will of God. Look at those men. God had done wonders. He had extended the church to Antioch, and He had given rich and large blessing.Now, here were these men ministering to the Lord, serving Him with prayer and fasting. What a deep conviction they have – “It all must come direct from Heaven. We are in fellowship with thee risen Lord; we must have a close union with Him, and somehow He will let us know what He wants.” And there they were, empty, ignorant, helpless, glad and joyful, but deeply humbled. “O Lord,” they seemed to say, “we are Thy servants, and in fasting and prayer we wait upon Thee. What is Thy will for us?”

Was it not the same with Peter? He was on the housetop, fasting and praying, and little did he think of the vision and the command to go to Cæsarea. He was ignorant of what his work might be.

The fourth thought is – What is now the will of God as the Holy Spirit reveals it? It is contained in one phrase: Seperation unto the Holy Ghost. “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. The work is mine, and I care for it, and I have chosen these men and called them, and  I want you who represent the churches to set them apart to me.”

Look at this heavenly message in its twofold aspct. The men were to be set apart to the Holy Ghost, and the local churches was to do this seperating work. The Holy Ghost could trust these men to do it in a right spirit. They were abiding in fellowship with the heavenly, and the Holy Ghost could say to them, “Do the work of seperating these men.” And these were the men the Holy Ghost had prepared, and He could say of them, “Let them be seperated unto me.”

Herer we come to the very root, to the very life of the need of Christian workers. The question is: What is needed that the power of God should rest upon us more mightily, that the blessing of God should be poured out more abundantly among those poor, wretched people and perishing sinners among whom we labour? And the answer from Heaven is: “I want men seperated unto the Holy Ghost.”

Then comes the fifth thought – This holy partnership with the Holy Spirit in His work becomes a matter of consciousness and action. These men,what did they do? They set apart Paul and Barnabas, and then it is written of the two that they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, went down to Seleucia. Oh, what fellowship! The Holy Spirit in Heaven doing part of the work, men on earth doing the other part. After the ordination of the men upon earth, it is written in God’s inspired Word that they were sent forth by the Holy Ghost.

And we see how this partnership calls to new prayer and fasting. They had for a certain time been ministering to the Lord and fasting, perhaps days; and the Holy Spirit speaks, and they have to do the work and enter into a partnership, and at once they come together for more praying and fasting. That is the spirit in which they obey the command of their Lord. And that teaches us that it is not only in the beginning of our Christian work, but all along that we need to have our strength in prayer. If there is one thought with regard to the church, which at times comes to me with overwhelming sorrow; if there is one thought in regard to my own life of which I am ashamed; if there is one thought of which I feel that the church has not accepted it and not grasped it; if there is one thought which makes me prat to God: “Oh, teach us by Thy grace new things” – it is the wonderful power that prayer is meant to have.

Then comes the last thought – What a wonderful blessing comes when the Holy Ghost is allowed to lead and to direct the work, and when it is carried on in obedience to Him. You know the story of the mission on which Barnabas and Paul were sent out.  You know what power there was with them. The Holy Ghost sent them, and they went on from place to place with large blessing. The Holy Ghost was their leader further on. You recollect how it was by the Spirit that Paul was hindered from going again into Asia, and was lead away over to Europe. Oh, the blessing that rested upon that little company of men, and upon their ministry unto the Lord!

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Part 4: Peter’s repentence

“And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.
And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.” (Luke 22:61-62)

This was the turning-point in the history of Peter. Christ had said to him: “Thou canst not follow me now.” Peter was not in a fit state to follow Christ because he had not been brought to an end of himself. He did not know himself, and he therefore could not follow Christ. But when he went out and wept bitterly, then came the great change. Christ previously said to him: “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Here is the point where Peter was converted from self to Christ.

I thank God for the story of Peter. I do not know a man in the Bible who gives us greater comfort. When we look at his character, so full of failures, and at what Christ made him by the power of the Holy Spirit, there is hope for every one of us. But remember, before Christ could fill Peter with the Holy Ghost and make a new man of him, he had to be humbled. If we want to understand this, I think there are four points that we must look at.

1. Peter, the devoted disciple of Christ

Jesus called Peter to forsake his nets and follow Him. Peter did that at once, and afterwards he could say to the Lord: “We have forsaken all and followed Thee“.

Peter was a man of absolute surrender; he gave up all and followed Jesus. Peter was also a man of ready obedience. You remember Jesus said to him: “Launch out into the deep and let down your net.” Peter the fisherman knew there were no fish there, for they had been toiling all night and caught nothing; but he said “At Thy word I will let down the net.” He submitted to the word of Jesus. Further, he was a man of great faith. When he saw Jesus walking on the sea, he said “Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee”; and at the voice of Christ he stepped out of the boat and walked upon the water.

And Peter was a man of spiritual insight. When Christ asked His disciples “Whom do ye say that I am?” Peter was able to answer “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Christ said: “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” And Christ spoke of him as the rock man, and of his having the keys of the kingdom. Peter was a splendid man, a devoted disciple of Jesus, and if he were living nowadays, everyone would say that he was an advanced Christian. And yet, how much there was wanting in Peter.

2. Peter, living the life of self

Peter was living the life of self, pleasing self, trusting self  and seeking the honour of self. You recollect that just after Christ had said to him: “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven,” Christ began to speak about His sufferings, and Peter dared to say: “Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall not be unto Thee.” Then Jesus had to say: “Get thee behind me, Satan; tor thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” There was Peter in his self-will, trusting his own wisdom, and actually forbidding Christ to go and die. Where did that come from? Peter trusted in himself and his own thoughts about divine things. We see later on, more than once, that among the disciples there was a questionning who should be the greatest, and Peter was one of them, and he thought he had a right to the very first place. He sought his own honour even above the others. It was the life of self strong in Peter. He had left his boats and his nets, but not his old self.

When Christ had spoken to him about His sufferings and said “Get thee behind me, Satan,” He followerd up by saying “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” No man can follow Him unless he do that. Self must be utterly denied. Whast does that mean? When Peter denied Christ, we read that he said three times “I do not know the man“; in other words “I hvae nothing to do with Him; He and I are no friends; I deny having any connection with Him.” Christ told Peter that he must deny self. Self must be ignored, and it’s every claim rejected. That is the root of true discipleship: but Peter did not understand it, and could not obey it.

3. Peter, and his repentence

Peter denied the Loird thrice, and then the Lord looked upon him; and that look of Jesus broke the heart of Peter, and all at once there opened up before him the terrible sin that he had committed, the terrible failure that had come, and the depth into which he had fallen, and “Peter went out and cried bitterly.”

Oh, who can tell what that repentance must have been? During the following hours of that night, and the next day, when Christ was crucified and buried, and the next day, the Sabbath – oh, in what hopeless despair and shame he must have spent that day!

“My Lord is gone, my hope is gone, and I denied my Lord. After that life of love, after that blessed fellowship of three years, I denied my Lord. God have mercy upon me!”

I do not think we can realize into what a depth of humiliation Peter sank then. But that was the turning-point and the change; and on the first day of the week, Christ was seen of Peter, and in the evening He met him with the others. Later at the lake og Galilee He asked him: “Lovest thou me?” until Peter was made sad by the thought that the Lord reminded him of having denied Him thrice; and said in sorrow, but but in uprightness: “Lord, thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.”

4. Peter, delivered from self

You know that Christ took him with the others to the footstool of the throne and bade them wait there; and at the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, and Peter was a changed man. I do not want you to think only of the change in Peter, in that boldness, and that power, and that insight into the Scriptures, and that blessing with which he preached that day.  Thank God for that. But there was something deeper and better. Petr’s whole nature was changed. The work that Christ began in Peter when He looked upon him was perfected when he was filled with the Holy Ghost.

If you want to see that, read 1 Peter. You know wherein Peter’s failings lay. When he said to Jesus, in effect “Thou never canst suffer; it cannot be” – it showed he had not a conception of what it was to pass through death into life. Christ said “Deny thyself,” and he insisted that he never would, Peter showed how little he understood what there was in himself. But when I read his epistle and hear him say. “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye, for the Spirit of God and of glory resteth upon you,” then I say that is not the old Peter, but that is the very Spirit of Christ breathing and speaking within him.

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Part 5: Impossible with man, possible with God

“And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” (Luke 18:27)

Christ had said to the rich, young ruler “Sell all that thou hast… and come, follow  me.” The young man went away sorrowful. Christ then turned to the disciples, and said “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God.” The disciples, we read, were greatly astonished, and answered “If it is so difficult to enter the kingdom, who, then, can be saved?” And Christ gave this blessed answer: “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” 

The text contains two thoughts – that in religion, in the question of salvation and of following Christ by a holy life, it is impossiblefor man to do it. And then alongside with this thought – what is impossible for men is possible with God.

The two thoughts mark the two great lessons that man has to learn in the religious life. It often takes a long time to learn the first lesson, that in religion man can do nothing, that salvation is impossible to man. And often a man learns that, yet he does not learn the second lesson – what has been impossible to him is possible with God. Blessed is the man who learns both lessons! The learning of them marks stages in the Christian life.

Lesson 1: In religion, in the question of salvation and of following Christ by a holy life, it is impossiblefor man to do it.

The one stage is when a man (or woman) is trying to do his utmost and fails, when a man tries to do better and fails again, when a man tries much more and always fails. And yet very often he does not even the learn the lesson. Peter spent three years in Christ’s school, and he never learned that it is impossible until he had denied his Lord and went out and wept bitterly. Then he learned it.

Just look for a moment at a man who is learning this lesson. At first he fights against it; then he submits to it, but reluctantly and in despair; at last he accepts it willingly and rejoices in it. At the beginning of the Christian life the young convert has no conception of this truth. He has been converted, he has the joy of the Lord in his heart, he begins to run the race and fight the battle; he is sure he can conquer, for he is earnest and honest, and God will help him. Yet, somehow, very soon he fails where he did not expect it, and si gets the better of him. He is disappointed, but he thinks: “I was not watchful enough, I did not make my resolutions strong enough.” And again he vows, and again he prays, and yet he fails. He thought: “Am I not a regenerate man? Have I not the life of God within me?” And he thinks again: “Yes, and I have Christ to help me, I can live the holy life.”

At a later period he comes to another state of mind. He begins to see such a life is impossible, but he does not axcept it. There are multitudes of Christians who come to this point: “I cannot”, and then think God never expected them to do what they cannot do. If you tell them that God does expect it, it appears to them a mystery. A good many Christians are living a low life, a life of failure and of sin, istead of rest and victory, because they bagan to see: “I cannot, it is impossible.” And yet they do not understand it fully, and so, under the impression I cannot, they give way to despair. They will do their best, but they never expect tro get on very far.

But God leads His children on to a third stage, where a man comes to take that It si impossible in its full truth, and yet at the same time says: “I must do it, ab\nd I will do it – it is impossible for man, and yet I must do it”; when the renewed will begins to exercise its whole power, and in intense longing and prayer begins to cry to God: “Lord, what is the meaning of this? – how am I to be freed from the power of sin?”

It is the state of the regenerate man in Romans 7. There you will find the Christian man trying his very utmost to live a holy life. God’s law has been revealed to him as reaching down into the very depth of the desires of the heart, and the man can dare to say “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (Romans 7:18-23).

Can a man like that fail, with his heart full of delight in God’s law and with his will determined to do what is right? Yes. That is what Romans 7 teaches us. There is something mmore needed. Not only must I delight in the law of God after the inward man, and will what God wills, bit I need a divine omnipotence to work in me. And that is what the apostle Paul teaches in Philippians 2:13: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

Note the contrast. In Romans 7, the regenerate man says: “To will is present with me, but to do good – I find I cannot do. I will, but I cannot preform.” But in Philippians 2, you have a man who has been led on farther, a man who understands that God has worked His renewed will, God will give the power to accomplish what that will desires. Let us receive this as The first great lesson in the spiritual life.

Praise God for the divine teaching that makes us helpless! When you thought of absolute surrender to God, were you not brought to an end of yourself, and to feel that you could see how you actually could live as a man absolutely surrendered to God every moment of the day – at your table, in your house, in your business, in the midst of trials and temptations? I pray you learn the lesson now. If you feel you could not do it, you are on the right road, if you let yourself be led.

Lesson 2: What is impossible for men is possible with God.

I said a little moment ago that there is many a man who has learned lesson one and then give up in hopeless despair, a lives a wretched Christian life, without joy, or strength, or victory. And why? Because he does not humble himself to learn lesson number two; that with God all things are possible.

Your religious life is every day to be a proof that God works impossibilities; your religious life is to be a series of impossibilities made possible and actual by God’s almighty power. That is what the Christian needs. He has an almighty God that he worships, and he must learn to understand that he does not need a little of God’s power, but he needs – with reverence be it said – the whole of God’s omnipotence to keep him right, and to live like a Christian.

The whole of Christianity is a work of God’s omnipotence. Look at the birth of Jesus Christ. That was a miracle of divine power, and it was said to Mary: “With God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1 :37). It  was the omnipotence of God. Look at Christ’s resrruection. We are tought that it was according to the exceeding greatness of His mighty power that God raised Christ from the dead.

Every tree  must grow on the root from which it springs. An oak tree 300 years old grows all the time from the one root from which it had its beginning. Christianity had its beginning in the omnipotence of God, and in every soul it must have its continuance in that omnipotence. All the possibilities of the higher Christian life have their origin in a new apprehension of Christ’s power to work all God’s will in us.

I want to call  upon you now to come and worship an almighty God. Have you learned to do it? Have you learned to deal closely with an almighty Godthat you know omnipotence is working in you? In outward appearance  there is often so little sign of it. The apostle Paul said: “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in mmuch trembling, and… my preaching was… in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” From the human side there was feebleness, and from the divine side there was divine omnipotence. And that is true of every godly life; and if we would only learn that lesson better, and give a wholehearted, undivided surrender to it, we should learn what a blessing there is in dwelling every hour and every moment with an almighty God. Have you ever studied in the Bible the attribute of God’s omnipotence? You know that it was God’s omnipotence that created the world, and created light out of darkness, and created man. But have you studied God’s omnipotence in the work of redemption? Maybe that’s a topic for another study…

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Part 6: “O wretched man that I am!”

“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Romans 7:24-25)

You know the wondeful place that this text has in the wonderful epistle to the Romans. It stands here at the end of the 7th chapter as a gateway into the 8th. In the first 16 verses of the 8th chapter, the name of the Holy Spirit is found 16 times. You have there the description and promise of the life that a child of God can live in the power of the Holy Ghost. This begins in the 2nd verse: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2) From that, Paul goes on to speakof the great privileges of the child of God, who is to be led by the Spirit of God. The gateway into all of this is in the 24th verse of the 7th chapter: “O wretched man that I am!”

There you have the words of a man who has come to the end of himself. He hasin the privious verses described how he has struggled and wrestled in his own power to obey the holy law of God, and had failed. But inanswer to his own question he now finds the true answer and cries out “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” From that he goes on to speak of what that deliverance is that he has found.

I want from these words to describe the path by which a man can be led out of the spirit of bondage into the spirit of liberty. You know how distincly it is said: “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear.” We are continually warned that this is the great danger of the Christian life, to again go into bondage; and *I want to describe the path by which a man gets out of bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Rather, I want to describe the man himself.

1. These are the words of a regenerate man

You know how much evidence there is of that from the 14th verse of the chapter on to the 23rd. “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me“: that is the language of a regenerate man, a man who knows that in his heart and nature have been renewed, and that sin is no a power in him that is not himself. “I delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man“: that again is the language of a regenerate man. He dares to say when he does evil: “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” It is of great importance to understand this.

2. These are the words of an impotent man

Here is the great mistake made by many Christian people. They think that when there is a renewed will, it is enough; but that is not the case. This regenerate man tells us: “I will to do what is good, but the power to perform I find not.” How often people tell us that if you set yourself determinedly, you can perform what you will! But this man was as determined as any man can be, and yet he made the confession: “To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not.”

But, you ask: “How is it God makes a regenerate man utter such a confession, with a right to will, with a heart that longs to do good, and longs to do its very utmost to love God?

Let us look at this question. What has God given us our will for? Had the angels who fell, in their own will, the strenght to stand? Verily, no. The will of the creature is nothing but an empty vessel in which the power of God is to be made manifest. The creature must seek in God all that it is to be. You have it in the 2nd chapter of the epistle to the Philippians, and you have it also here, that God’s work is to work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Here is a man who appears to say: “God has not worked to do in me.” But we are taught that God works both to will and to do. How is the apparent cantradiction to be reconciled?

You will find that in the passage of Romans 7:6-25, the name of the Holy Spirit does not occur once, nor does the name of Christ occur. The man is wrestling and struggling to fullfill God’s law. Instead of the Holy Spirit and of Christ, the law is mentioned nearly 20 times. In this chapter, it shows a believer doing his very best to obey the law of God with his regenerate will. Not only this, but you will find the words I, me, my, occur more than 40 times. It is the regenerate I in its impotence seeking to obey the law without being filled with the Spirit.

3. These are the words of a wretched man

He is utterly unhappy and miserable; and what is it that makes him so utterly miserable? It is because God has given him a nature that loves Himself. He is deeply wretched because he feels he is not obeying his God. He says, with a brokenness of heart: “It is not I that do it, but I am under the awful power of sin, which is holding me down. It is I, and yet not I: alas! alas! it is myself; so closely an I bound up with it, and so closely is it intertwined with my very nature.” Blessed be God when a man learns to say: “O wretched man that I am!” from the depth of hi heart. He is on the way to the 8th chapter of Romans.

There are many wo make this confession a pillow for sin. They say that Paul had to confess his weakness and helplessness in this way; what are they that they should try to do better? So the call toholiness is quietly set aside. Would God that every one of us had learned to say these words in the very spirit in which they are written here! When we hear sin spoken of as the abominable thing that God hates, do not many of us wince before the Word? Would that all Christians who go on sinning and sinning would take this verse to heart. If ever you utter a sharp word, say: “O wretched man that I am!” And every time you lose your temper, kneel down and understand that it never was meant by God that this was to be the state in which His child should remain. Would God that we should take this word into our daily life, and say it every time we are touched about our own honour, and every time we say sharp things, and every time we sin against the Lord God, and against the Lord Jesus Christ in His humility, and in His obedience, and in His self-sacrifice! Would to God you could forget everything else, and cry out:  “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” 

4. These are the words of a man who is on the very brink of deliverance

The man has tried to obey the beautiful law of God. He has loved it, he has wept over his sin, he has tried to conquer, he has tried to overcome fault after fault, but every time he has ended in failure.

What did he mean by “the body of his death”? Did he mean, my body when I die? Surely not. In the 8th chapter you have the answer to this question in the words: “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” That is the body of deathfrom which he is seeking deliverence.

And now he’s at the brink of deliverance! In the 23rd verse of the 7th chapter we have the words: “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” It is a captive that cries: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” He is a man who feels himself bound. But look at the contrast in the 2nd verse of the 8th chapter: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” That is the deliverance through Jesus Christ our Lord; the liberty to the captive which the Spirit brings. Can you keep captive any longer a man free by the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus“?

But, you say, did not the regenerate man have thee Spirit of Jesus when he spoke in the 6th chapter? Yes, he did, but he did not know what the Holy Spirit could do for him.

God does not work by His Spirit as He works by a blind force in nature. He leads His people on as reasonable, intelligent beings, and therefore when He wants to give us that Holy Spirit whom He has promised, He brings us first to the end of self, to the conviction that though we have been striving to obey the law, we hhave failed. When we have come to the end of that, then He shows us that in the Holy Spirit we have the power of obedience, the power of victory, and the power of real holiness…

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Part 7: “Having begun in the Spirit”

“Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3)

When we speak of the quickening or the deepening or the strengthening of the spiritual life, we are thinking of something that is feeble and wrong and sinful; and it is a great thing to take our place before God with the confession: “Oh God, our spiritual life is not what it should be!” May God work that in our hearts.

As we look round about on the church, we see so many indications of feebleness and of failure, and of sin, and of shortcoming, that we are compelled to ask: Why is it? Is there any necessity for the church of Christ to be living in such a low state? Or is it actually possible that God’s people should be living always in the joy and strength of their God? Every believing heart must answer that it is possible.

Then comes the great question: Why is it, how isit to be accounted for, that God’s church as a whole is so feeble, and that the great majority of Christians are not living up to their privileges? There must be a reason for it. Has God not given Christ, His Almighty Son, to be the keeper of every believer, to make Christ an ever-present reality, and to impart and communicate to us all that we have in Christ? God has given His Son, and God has given His Spirit. How is it that believers do not live up to their privileges?

We find in more than one of the epistles a very solemn answer to this question. There are epistles, such as 1 Thessalonians, where Paul writes to the Christians, in effect: “I want to grow, to abound, to increase more  and more.” They were young, and there were things lacking in their faith, but their state was so far satisfactory, and gave him great joy, and he writes time after time: “I pray God that you may abound more and more; I write to you to increase more and more.” But there are other epistles where he takes a very different tone, especially the epistles to the Corinthians and to the Galatians, and he tells  them in many different ways what the one reason was, that they were not living as Christians ought tolive; many were under the power of the flesh. The text at the top is one example. He reminds them that by the preaching of the faith they had received the Holy Spirit. He had preached Christ to them; they had excepted that Christ, and had received the Holy Spirit in power. But what happened? Having begun in the Spirit, they tried to perfect the work that the Spirit had begun in the flesh by their own effort. We find the same teaching in the epistle to the Corinthians.

Now let us try to learn what this word to the Galatians teaches us – some very simple thoughts

1. “Having begun in the Spirit”

Remember that Paul had not only preached justification by faith, but he preached something more. He preached that justified men cannot live but by the Holy Spirit, and therefore God gives to every justified man the Holy Spirit to seal him. The apostle says to them in effect more than once: “How did you receive the Holy Spirit? Was it by the preaching of the law, or by the preaching of faith?” He could point back to that time when there had been a mighty revival under his teaching. The power of God had been manifested, and the Galatians were compelled to confess: “Yes, we have got the Holy Ghost: accepting Christ by faith, by faith we received the Holy Spirit.”

Now, it is to be feared that there are many Christians who hardly know that when they believed, they received the Holy Ghost. A great many Christians can say: “I received pardon and I received peace.” But if you were to ask them: “Have you received the Holy Ghost?” they would hesitate and many, if they were to say yes, would say it with hesitation; and they would tell you that they hardly knew what it was, since that time, to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us try to take hold of this great truth: The beginning of the true Christian life is to receive the Holy Ghost. And the work of every Christian minister is that which was the work of Paul – to remind his people that they have received the Holy Ghost, and must live according to His guidance and in His power.

2. The great danger

You all know shunting is on a railway. A locomotive with its train may be run in a certain direction, and the points at place may not be properly opened or closed, and unobservingly it is shunted off to the right or the left. And if that takes place, for instance, on a dark night, the train goes in the wrong direction, and the people might never know it until they have gone some distance.

And just so, God gives the Christians the Holy Spirit with this intetion, that every day in their life should be lived in the power of the Spirit. A man cannot live one hour of a godly life unless by the power of the Holy Spirit. He may live a proper, consistent life, as people call it, an irreproachable life, a life of virtue and dilligent service; but to live a life acceptable to God, in the enjoyment of God’s salvation and God’s love, to live and walk in the power of the new life – he cannot do it unless he is guided by the Holy Spirit every day and every hour.

But now listen to the danger. The Galatians received the Holy Ghost, but what was begun by the Spirit, they tried to perfect in the flesh. How? They fell back again under Judaizing teachers who told them they must be circumcised. They began to seek their religion in external observances. And Paul uses that expression about those teachers who had them circumcised, that “they sought glory in their flesh.”

You may at times hear the expression religious flesh. What is meant by that? It is simply an expression made to give utterance to this thought: My human nature and my human will and my human effort can be very active in religion, and after being converted, and after receiving the Holy Ghost, I may begin in my own strength to serve God.

3. What are the proofs that a church is serving in the flesh?

The answer is very easy. Religious self-effort always ends in sinful flesh. What was the state of those Galatians? Striving to be justified by works of the law. And yet they were quarreling and in danger of devouring one another. Count up the expressions that the apostle uses to indicate their want of love, and you will find more than twelve – envy, jealousy, bitterness, strife and all sorts of expressions. Read in the 4th and 5th chapter what he says about that. You see how they tried to serve God in their own strength, and they failed utterly. All this religious effort resulted in failure. The power of sin and the sinful flesh got the better of them, and their whole condition was one of the saddest that could be thought of.

This comes to us with unspeakable solemnity (serious ceremony). There is a complaint everywhere in the Christian church of the want of a higher standard of integrity and godliness, even among the professing members of the Christian churches. I remember a sermon I once heard preached on commercial morality. And, oh, we do not only speak of the commersial morality or immorality, but if we go into the homes  of Christians, and we think of the life to which God has called His children, and which He enables them to live by the Holy Ghost, and if we think of how much, nevertheless, there is of unlovingness and temper and sharpness and bitterness,  and if we think how much there is very often of strife among the members of churches, and how much there is of envy and jealousy and sensitiveness and pride, then we are compelled to say: “Where are the marks of the presence of the Spirit of the Lamb of God?” Wanting, sadly wanting.

4. What is the way to restoration?

My beloved friend, the answer is simple and easy. If the train has been shunted off, there is nothing for it but to come back to the point at which it was led away. The Galatians had no other way in returning but to come back to where they had gone wrong, to come back from all religious effort in their own strenght, and from seeking anything by their own work, and to yield themselves humbly to the Holy Spirit. There is no other way for us as individuals.

There are two questions I would like to finish this chapter off with. Firstly; Are you living a life under the Holy Spirit day by day, or are you attempting to live without that? Remeber that it is only by surrendering completely to God that we can grow in Christ and please Him. The second question is: Are you willing to be consecrated (set appart) to the Holy Spirit? If you are not willing to follow God, then it is obvious that you never will follow him. If you are willing, then just give yourself wholly to Him. You will never regret it!

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Part 8: Kept by the power of God

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3-5).

Here we have two wonderful, blessed truths about the keeping by which a believer is kept unto salvation. One truth is Kept by the power of God; and the other truth is Kept throgh faith. We shall look at both sides – at God’s side and His almighty power, offered to us to be our Keeper every moment of the day; and at the human side, we having nothing to do but in faith let God do His keeping work. We are begotten again to an inheritance kept in Heaven for us; and we are kept here on earth by the power of God. We see there is a double keeping – the inheritance kept for me in Heaven, and I on earth kept for the inheritance there.

1. Kept by the power of God

   A. This keeping is all-inclusive

What is kept? You are kept! How much of you? Your whole being! Does God keep one part of you and not another? No! Some people have the idea that this is sort of vague, general keeping, and that God will keep them in such a way that when they die, they will get to Heaven, but they do not apply that word kept to everything in their being and nature. And yet, that is what God wants.

Suppose I borrowed a watch from a friend, and this friend told me: “When you go to America, I will let you take it with you, but mind you keep it safely and bring it back.” Suppose I damaged the watch , and had the hands broken, and the face defaced, and some of the wheels and springs spoiled, and took it back in that condition, and handed it to my friend; he would say: “Ah, but I gave you that watch on condition that you would keep it.” “Have I not kept it? There’s the watch.” “But I did not want you to keep it in that general way, so that you should bring me back only the shell of the watch, or the remains. I expected you to keep every part of it.” And so, God does not want to keep us in this general way, so that at last, somehow or other, we shall be saved as by fire, and just get into Heaven. But the keeping power and the love of God applies to every particular of our being.

     B. He will delight to keep you

Some people think they never can get so far as that every word of their mouth should be to the glory of God. But it is what God wants of them, it is what God expects of them. God is willing to set a watch at the door of their mouth, and if God will do that, can He not keep their tongue and their lips? He can; and that is what God is going to do for them that trust Him. God’s keeping is all-inclusive, and let everyonewho longs to live a holy life think out all their needs, and all their weaknesses, and all their shortcomings, and all their sins, and say deliberately: “Is there any sin that my God can not keep me from?” And the heart will have to answer: “No; God can keep me from every sin.”

     C. An almighty keeping

God is almighty, and the Almighty God offers Himself to work in my heart, to do the work of keeping me; and I want to get linked with Omnipotence, or rather, linked to the Omnipotent One, to the living God, and to have my place in the hollow of His hand.

Have you ever thought that in every action of grace in your heart you have the whole omnipotence of God engaged to bless you? When I come to a man and he bestows upon me a gift of money, I get it and go away with it. He has given me something of his; the rest he keeps for himself.But that is not the way with the power of God. God can part with nothing of His own power, and therefore I can experience the power and goodness of God only so far as I am in contact and fellowship with Himself; and when I come into contact and fellowship with the whole omnipotence of God, and have the omnipotence of God to help me every day.

     D. Continuous and unbroken

People sometimes say: “For a week or a month God has kept me wonderfully: I have lived in the light of His countenance, and I cannot say what joy I have had in fellowship with Him. He has blessed me in my work for others. He has given me souls, and at times I felt as if I were carried heavenward on eagle wings. But it did not continue. It was too good; it could not last.” And some say: “It was necessary that I should fall to keep me humble.” And others say: “I know it was my own fault; but somehow you cannot always live up in the heights.”

Why is this? Can there be any reason why the keeping of God should not be continuous and unbroken? Just think. All life is in unbroken continuity. If my life were stopped for half an hour, I would be dead, and my life gone. Life is a continuous thing, and the life of God is the life of His church, and the life of God is His almighty power working in us. And God comes to us as the Almighty One, and without any condition He offers to be my Keeper, and His keeping means that day by day, moment by moment, God is going to keep us.

If I were to ask the question: “Do you think that God is able to keep you one day from actual transgression?” I am sure you would answer “yes” or “I think so”. Well, ii God is able to do it an hour or a whole day, why not two days or longer? The fact is that God with His almighty power is more than able to do all this. Knowing this, it’s time to look at the next part of this truth.

2. Kept through faith

     A. Utter importance and helplessness before God

At the bottom of all faith there is a feeling of helplessness. If I have a bit of business to transact, perhaps to buy a house, the comveyancer must do the work of getting the transfer of the property in my name, and making all the arrangements. I cannot do that work, and in trusting that agent, I confess that I cannot do it. And so faith always means helplessness. In many cases it means: I can do it with a great deal of trouble, but another can do it better. But in most cases it is utter helplessness; another must do iit for me. And that is the secret of the spiritual life. A man must learn to say: “I give up everything! I have tried and longed, and thought and prayed, but failure has come. God has blessed me and helped me, but still, in the long run, there has been so much of sin and sadness.” What a change comes when a man is broken down into utter helplessness and despair like this, and says: “I can do nothing!”

Do you want to enter what people call “the higher life”? Then go a step lower down. There is a story of a gentleman who was invited to to go see some works where they made fine shot, and the workmen did so by pouring down molten lead from a great height. The gentleman was supposed to be taken up to the top of the tower to see how the work was done. The gentleman came to the tower, he entered by the door, and began going upstairs,; but when he had gone a few seps, the workman called out: “That is the wrong way! You must come down this way; those stairs are closed off!” The workman took him downstairs a good many steps, and there an elevator was ready to take the gentleman to the top. The gentleman said: “I have learned a lesson that going down is often the best way to go up!”

Oh yes, God will have to bring us very low down; there will have to come upon us a sense of emptiness and despair and nothingness. It is when we sink down in utter helplessness that the everlasting God will reveal Himself in His power, and that our hearts will learn to trust God alone.

     B. Rest

In the beginning of the faith-life, faith is struggling; but as long as faith is struggling, faith has not attained its strength. But when faith in its struggling gets to the end of itself, and just throws itself upon God and rests on Him, then comes joy and victory.

Once, a nobleman came from Capernaum to Cana to ask Jesus to heal his child. The nobleman believed tha Christ could help him in a general way, but he came to Jesus a good deal by way of an experiment. He hoped Christ would help him, but he had not any assurance of that help. But what happened? When Jesus said to him: “Go thy way, thy child liveth,” that man believed the word that Jesus spoke; he rested in that word. He had no proof that his child was well again, and he had to walk back seven hours journey to Capernaum. He walked back, and on the way met his servant, and got the first news that the child was well, that at one o’clock on the afternoon of the previous day,at the very time that Jesus spoke to him, the fever left the child. That father rested upon the word of Jesus and His work, and he went down to Capernaum and found his child well; and he praised God, and became with his whole house a believer and disciple of Jesus.

It is a great thing when a man comes to rest on God’s almighty power for every moment of his life, in prospect of temptations to temper and haste and anger and unlovingkindness and pride and sin. It is a great thing in prospect of these to enter into a covenant with the omnipotent Jehovah, not on account of anything that any man says, or of anything that my heart feels, but on the strength of the Word of God: “Kept by the power of God through faith.”

     C. Fellowship with God

Many people want to take the Word and believe that, and they find that they cannot believe it. Oh no! You cannot seperate God from His Word. No goodness or power can be received seperate from God, and if you want to get into this life of godliness , you must take time for fellowship with God.

People tell me: “My life is of such scurry and bustle that I have no time for fellowship with God.” A missionary once told me: ” People don’t know how we missionaries are tempted. I get up at five o’clock in the morning, and there are natives waiting for their orders for work. Then I have to goto the school and spend hours there; and then there is other work, and sixteen hours rush along,  and I hardly get time to be alone with God.”

There is the want! I pray that you will remember two things. I have not told you to trust the omnipotence of God as  a thing. and I have not told you to trust the Word of God as a written book, but I have told you to  go to the God of omnipotence and the God of the Word. Deal with God as that nobleman dealt with the living Christ. Why was he able to believe the word that Christ spoke to him? Because in the very eyes and tones and voice of Jesus, the Son of God, he saw and heard something which made him feel that he could trust Him. And that is what Christ can do for you and me. Leave your heart, and look into the face of Christ, and listen to what He tells you about how He will keep you. Look up into the face of your loving Father, and take time every day with Him, and begin a new life with the deep emptiness and povertyof a man who has got nothing, and who wants to get everything from Him – with a deep restfulness of a man who rests on the living God, the omnipotent Jehovah – and try God, and prove Him if He will not open the windows of Heaven and pour out a bøessingthat there shall not be room to receive it…

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Part 9: “Ye are the branches”

“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5).

In conclusion to our study “Absolute Surrender”, I will finish the study by mentioning these 7 points:

1. An address to Christian workers

Everything depends on our being right ourselves in Christ. If you want good apples, you need a good apple tree; and if I care for the health of the apple tree, the apple tree will give me good apples. If our life with Christ is right, all will come right. There may be the need of instruction and suggestion and help and training in the different departments of the work. But in the long run, the greatest essential is to have the full life in Christ – in other words, to have Christ in us, working through us. I know how much there often is to disturb us, or to cause anxious questionings; but the Master has such a blessing for every one of us, and such perfect peace and rest, such joy and strength, if we can only come into and be kept inthe right attitude toward life.

Remember Jesus’ words “Ye are the brances“. What a simple thing it is to be a branch. The branch grows out of the vine, or out of the tree, and there it lives and grows, and in due time, bears fruit. It has no responsibility except just to receive from the root and the stem sap and nourishment. And if we only by the Holy Spirit knew our reltionship to Jesus Christ, our work would be changed into the brightest and most heavnly thing on earth. Instead of there ever being soul-weariness or exhaustion, our work would be like a new experience, linking us to Jesus as nothing else can. For is it not often true that our work comes between us and Jesus? The very work that He has to do in me, and I in Him, I take up in such a way that it seperates me from Christ. Many a labourer in the vineyard has complained that he has too much work, and not time for close communion with Jesus, and that his usual work weakens his inclination for prayer, and that his too much intercourse with men darkens the spiritual life. Sad thought, that he bearing of fruit should seperate the branch from the vine! That must be because we have looked upon our work as something other than the branch bearing fruit. May God deliver us from every false thought about the Christian life.

2. A life of absolute dependence

The branch has nothing. It just depends upon the vine for everything. Absolute dependence is one of the most solemn and precious thoughts. A great German theologian wrote two large volumes several years ago to show that the whole of Calvin’s theology is summed up in that one principle of absolute surrender upon God; and he was right. Another great writer has said that absolute, unalterable dependence upon God alone is the essence of the religion of angels, and should be that of men also. God is everything to the angels, and He is willing to be everything to the Christian. If I can learn every moment of the day to depend on God, everything will become right. You will get the higher life if you depend absolutely on God.

Now, here we find it with the vine and branches. Every vine you ever see, or every bunch of grapes that comes upon your table, let it remind you that the branch is absolutely dependent on the vine. The vine has to do the work, and the branches enjoys the fruit of it.

3. Deep restfulness 

Imagine if that little branch could think, and if it could feel, and if it could speak, if we could have a little branch here today to talk to us, and if we could say: “Come, branch of the vine, I want to learn from you how I can learn to be  true branch of the living Vine,” what would it answer? The little branch would whisper: “Man, I hear that you are wise, and I know that you can do a great many wonderful things. I know you have much strength and wisdom given to you, but I have one leson for you. With all your hurry and effort in Christ’s work you will never prosper. The first thing you need, is to come and rest in the Lord Jesus. That is what I do. Since I grew out of that vine, I have spent years and years, and all I have done is just to rest in the vine. When the time of spring came, I had no anxious thought or care. The vine began to pour its sap into me, and to give the bud and leaf. And when the time of summer came, I had no care, and in the great heat I trusted the vine to bring moisture to keep me fresh. And in the harvest, when the owner came to pluck the grapes, I had no care. If there was anything in the grapes that was no good, the owner never blamed the branch, the blame was always on the vine. And if you would be a true branch of Christ, the living Vine, just rest on Him. Let Christ bear the responsibility.”

4. Much fruitfulness

You know the Lord Jesus repeated the word fruit often in that parable. He spoke, first, of fruit, and then of more fruit, then of much fruit, Yes, you are ordained not only to bring forth fruit, but to bear much fruit. “.” In the first place, Christ said: “I am the Vine, and my Father is the Husbandman. My Father is the Husbandman who has the charge of me and you.” He who will watch over the connection between Christ and the branches in God, he will bear fruit in the power of God through Christ.

Christian, you know that this world is perishing for the want of workers. And it wants not only more workers. The workers are saying, some more earnest than others: “We need not only more workers, but we need our workerss to have a new power,a different life; that we workers should be able to bring about more blessing.” Children of God, I appeal to you. You know what trouble you take, say,in sicknesss. You have a beloved friend apparently in danger of death, and nothing can refresh that friend so much as a few grapes, and they are oiut of season; but what trouble you will take to get the grapes that are to be the nourishment of this dying friend! And there are around you people who never go to church, and so many whodo go to church, but do not knoe Christ. And yet, the heavenly grapes, the grapes of the heavenly Vine are not to be had at any price, except as the child of God bears them out of his inner life in fellowship with Christ. Except the children of God are filled with the sap of the heavenly Vine, except they are filled with the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus, they cannot bear much of the real heavenly grape. We all confess there is a great deal of work, a great deal of preaching and teaching and visiting, a great deal of machinery, a great deaal of earnest effort of every kind; but there is not much manifestation of the power of God in it.

What is wanting? There is the close connection between the worker and the heavenly Vine. Christ, the heavenly Vine, has blessings that He could pour on tens of thousands that are perishing. Christ, the heavenly Vine, has power to provide the heavenly grapess. But “Ye are the branches,” and you cannot bear heavenly fruit unless you are in close connection with Jesus Christ.

Do not confound work and fruit. There may be a good deal of work for Christ that is not the fruit of the heavenly Vine. Do not seek for work only. Please study this question of fruit-bearing. It means the very life and the very power and the very spirit and the very love within the heart of the Son of God – it means the heavenly Vine Himself coming into your heart and mine.

5. A life of close communion

Let us again ask: What must a branch do? You know that precious inexhaustible word that Christ used: Abide. Your life is to be an abiding life. And how is the abiding to be? It is just to be like the branch in the vine, abiding every minute of the day. There are the branches, in close communion, in unbroken communion, with the vine, from January to December. Can I not live every day in abiding communion with the heavenly Vine? You say: “But I’m sooccupied with other things.” You may have 10 hours hard work every day during which your brain has to be occupied with temporal things; God orders it so. But the abiding work is the work of the heart, not of the brain, the work of the heart clinging to and resting in Jesus, a work in which the Holy Spirit links us to Christ. Please believe that deeper down than the brain, deep down in the inner life, you can abide in Christ, so that every momentyou are free, the conscience will say: “Blessed Jesus, I am still in you.”

If you learn for a time to put aside other work and get into this abiding contact with the heavenly Vine, you will find that fruit will come. It means close fellowship with Christ in secret prayer. I am sure there are Christianswho do long for the higher life, and who sometimes have got a great blessing, and have at times found a great inflow of heavenly joy and a greaat outflow of heavenly gladness; and yet, after a time, it has passed away. They have not understood that close personal actual communion with Christ is an absolute necessity for daaily lifee. Take time to be with Christ. Nothing in heaven or earth can free you from the necessity for that if you are to be happy and holy Christians.

6. A life of absolute surrender

These words, absolute surrender, are great and solemn words, and I believe we do not undersstand their meaning. But yet, the little branch preaches them. “Have you anything to do, little branch, besides bearing grapes?” “No, nothing!” “Are you fit for nothing?” Fit for nothing! The Bible says that a bit of vine cannot even be used as a pen; it is fit for nothing but to be burned. “And now, little branch, what do you undersstand about your relationship to the vine?” “My relationship is this: I am utterly given up to the vine, and the vine can give me as much or as little sap assit choses. Here I am at its disposal, and the vine can do with me what it likes.”

Friends, we do want this absolute surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. The more I write, the more I feel that this is one of the most difficult points to make clear, and one of the most important and needful points to explain – what this surrender is. It is often an eaasy thing for a man or a number of men to come out and offer themselves up to God for entire consecration, and to say: Lord, it is my desire to give up myself entirely to You.” That is of great value, and often brings very rich blessing. But the one question I ought to study quietly, is our last point tonight:

7. What is meant by absolute surrender?

It means that just as literally as Christ was given up entirely to God, I am given up entirely to Christ. Is that too strong? Some think so. Some think that never can be that just as entirely and absolutely as Christ gave up His life to do nothing but to seek the Father’s pleasure, and depend on the Father absolutely and entirely, I am to do nothing but seek the pleasure of Christ. But that is actually true. Christ Jesus came to breathe His own Spirit into us, to make us find our very highest happiness in living entirely for God, just as He did. Dear reader, if that is the case, then I ought to say: “Yes, as true as it is of that little branch of the vine, by God’s grace, I would have it to be of me. I would live day by day that Christ may be able to do with me what He will.”

We find the Christian life so difficult because we seek for God’s blessing while we live in our own will. We should be glad to live the Christian life according to our own liking. We make our own plans andchoose our own work, and then we ask the Lord Jesus to come in and take care that sin shall not conquer us too much, and that we shall not go too far wrong; we ask Him to come in and give us so much of His blessing. But our relationship to Jesus ought to be such that we are entirely at His disposal, and every day come to Him humbly and straightforwardly and say: “Lord, is there anything in me that is not according to Your will, that has not been ordered by You, or that is entirely given to You?”

If we would wait and wait patiently, I tell you what the result would be. There would spring up a relationship between us and Christ so close and so tender that we should afterward be amazed at how we formerly could have lived with the idea that we were surrendered to Christ. We should feel how far distant our intercourse with Him had previously been, and that He can, and does indeed, come and take actual possession of us, and gives us unbroken fellowship all the day. The brach calls us to absolute surrender.

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THE END