As a dear minister once said to somebody, when he was arguing with him about being so hard in the pulpit, "I don"t care." "Oh!" said the other, "Don"t you know what became of "Don"t care?"" "Yes," he said, "He was crucified, and I am ready to be crucified alongside of him."
When you are in the right, don"t care. You can but be crucified, and it will soon be over; and then the Book says, "They that suffer with Him will also reign with Him, and they shall be glorified together."
It would be a wonderful thing to be glorified alone, but, oh, think of being glorified together!
A gentleman said lately, "I have been thinking a great deal about the glory. It is a wonderful thing--that glory that is to follow.
This would be worth a man sitting on the dunghill all his life to obtain." I looked at him, and thought, perhaps you are nearer to it than you think, and perhaps I am, too. Ah! it _is_ a wonderful thing, that glory that is to follow. Then let us be willing to suffer with Him and for Him. Make up your mind to be crucified at the start, and then it will be easy.
Further, _complete abandonment_ is a condition of successful labor.
It is so in anything. What would you think of a soldier who was always reckoning how much it was to cost, and when he should get back, or whether it was worth the sacrifice? You would say, "He is of no use to the British Army. We want men who will go in to win at all costs." Now, G.o.d wants men and women who will go in to win, who believe in winning, who know they have the power to win, and who count _all things_ loss in comparison to winning. Do you want success? If you do not come to that first, you will never get it.
Fourthly--_You must give up, kick out of the way, trample underfoot, all that hinders._
_Reputation_. Perhaps there are some ministers here. There were some last Sunday, and there were some the Sunday before. Some of you have written and others have talked to me. You say, "It would be such an entire breaking from one"s circle." Exactly. Some say, "You see, the inevitable consequences of setting up this high standard would be a constant running of the sword into some of your best hearers and your best friends." Exactly; that is giving your sword to blood. You would not think much of drawing the blood of an enemy--it is the blood of your _friends_ that is the test! I know all about it; I have been there. I was there a long while once. It was my own sore spot. The devil said, "If you begin preaching they will call you an impudent woman," and I felt it would be better almost to go to h.e.l.l than have that said about me. He said, "They will put you in the newspapers, and say all manner of coa.r.s.e and vulgar things about you;" and G.o.d only knows what that was to my soul; but I battled and struggled with it for a long while, until I said, at last, "Lord, I don"t care what they call me--I give myself to Thee to win souls."
Have I ever regretted it? Shall I ever regret it? No; He will take care of your reputation. Give it up to Him, my brother. The Scribes and the Pharisees never had anything good to say of Jesus coming in the flesh. Give up your reputation--follow Him. If it must be, decide to go after Him to Gethsemane, to Golgotha and the cross. Never mind--follow Him. Give up your reputation.
Then, your habits. How ashamed some of you will be who have made the mere Paris-born frivolities of society stand in the way of your consecration to Christ; and yet people who do this say they are Christians. I don"t know; I cannot believe it. There is drinking; they will have a gla.s.s of wine. Very well, you can have it; but you shall not have the wine of the kingdom. Professors will dress like the prost.i.tute of Paris. Very well; but they shall not be the bride of the Lamb. He will not walk in the streets with them, nor sit at the same table. You can go to parties where it is said there are only religious people, but where you know all manner of gossip and Christless chit-chat is going on, which you would be awfully ashamed the Master should hear, and from which you retire with no appet.i.te for prayer. You can go to all this, but I defy you to have the Holy Ghost at the same time. I won"t stop to argue it; I ONLY KNOW YOU CANNOT DO IT. All that will have to be put aside and given up. You say, "That is a sore point." Yes; I know that is driving the sword to blood.
Fifthly.--You must consecrate your money to be used for G.o.d.
I once heard an old veteran saint say, and I thought it was extravagant at the time, "I consider the use of money the surest test of a man"s character." I thought, no, surely his use of his wife and children is a surer test than that; but I have lived to believe his sentiment. Hence, you see how human experience justifies Divine wisdom--"the love of money is the root of all evil". So it is, in one form or other. G.o.d never uses anybody largely until they have given up their money. I simply state a fact. We know it is so by experience and the history of G.o.d"s people. You must give up your money as an end: saving it for its own sake, or the gratification of your selfish purposes or those of your children--it must be all given to G.o.d, to whom it belongs, being entirely used in His service. If you want to be a successful laborer for souls, you will have to do that at the threshhold. Give up your money to the Lord. If you think it right to keep some of it, keep it to use it for Him as you go; and be as strict with yourself, to your Heavenly Father, as you would be with your secretary or clerk to yourself, and then you will be all right.
It is a narrow and difficult path. I tremble for you who have got it, and I am glad I have not; but as you have got it, I give you the best advice I know. It is an awful thing to have it, but the next best thing is to consecrate it and use it to His glory; and if you do not, it will eat into your soul as doth a canker. To your spiritual nature it will be as a cancer is to your physical nature. They are Paul"s words, not mine.
I must say a word about _the reward_.
You think I am always driving you _to do_. Yes, because you need it. The Lord knows I do not find you do any too much. Some of you I am heartily ashamed of. Some of you need driving so that you ought to thank G.o.d for the rod. Paul says, "Shall I come unto you with the rod?" He was obliged to do it with some people. It is not an enviable thing to have to do; but we dare not, when G.o.d sets us work to do, shirk it; but there is a bright side--there is the reward.
"What!" you say, "does He pay you?" Yes, good wages--pressed down-- heaped together! He says, "The man who remembereth the poor (do you think He means only their bodies?), I will remember him; I will make his bed (what a tender allusion!) in his sickness." He will shake it up; spread His feathers on the pillows as no earthly nurse, not even the tenderest wife, can do. "I will make his bed in his sickness."
You will want Him then, brother! You are very independent, some of you, now, but you will want Him then. "I will make his bed in sickness. I will put underneath Him my everlasting arms." He will cause you to triumph in the swellings of Jordan. That will be grand, will it not? He will give you a triumphant entrance into His kingdom, those of you who have gone out in loving solicitude and anxious sympathy to labor for the souls of your fellow-men. He will administer unto you an abundant entrance, and then--what? He will give you CHILDREN; and the barren woman shall have more children than she that hath a husband.
Oh! the whole world is akin here. Every man and woman wants children. They are especially a heritage from the Lord. Nothing can make up for the want of children. The poorest parents, living in the humblest hut, would not sell you their children, and the rich man, who has twenty thousand a year, would give it for a son or for a daughter, when he cannot have one. All human beings want children.
Now, then, the Lord will give you children. A mother--even a sanctified mother--I suppose, cannot help feeling proud, or, rather, glad and thankful, when she shows good, obedient, and G.o.dly children to her friends. I do not believe that G.o.d wants to grind this out of us. I believe He delights in it Himself, just as He delighted to show His servant Job to the devil. "Hast thou considered My servant Job?"
Ah! was He not proud of him?--and He has been proud of him ever since. G.o.d has put this feeling in us, and it is a right feeling when it is sanctified. We cannot help but be proud of G.o.dly and obedient children; but what will it be to show your spiritual children, to the angels? How shall you feel when you gather the spiritual family which G.o.d has given you round the throne of your Saviour, and say, "Here am I and the children whom Thou hast given me"?--the children won through conflict, and trial, and strife, such as only G.o.d knew; "Children begotten in bonds," as Paul says--chains--children born in the midst of the hurricane of spiritual conflict, travail, and suffering, and cradled, rocked, fed, nurtured, and brought up at infinite cost and rack of brain, and heart, and soul; but now, here we are, Lord. We are here through it all. "Here am I and the children whom Thou hast given me." How shall you feel? Shall you be sorry for the trouble? Shall you regret the sacrifice? Shall you murmur at the way He has led you? Shall you think He might have made it a little easier, as you are sometimes tempted to do now? Oh! no, no!--THE CHILDREN! THE CHILDREN! you shall have children! Won"t that be reward enough?
Oh! sometimes, when I am pa.s.sing through conflict, and trial, in connection with a work which brings plenty of it behind the scenes, I encourage myself in the Lord, and remember those who have gone home sending me their salutations, from the verge of the river, telling me they will wait and look out for me, and be the first to hand me to the Saviour when I get there. Will not this be reward enough? Even so, Lord. Amen.
CHAPTER X.
ENTHUSIASM AND FULL SALVATION.
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN EXETER HALL.
Why should we be enthusiastic in everything but religion? Can you give me any reason for that? If there is any subject calculated to move our souls to their very centres, and to call out the enthusiasm of our nature, surely it is religion, if it be the real thing. Why should we not be enthusiastic? I have never seen a good reason yet.
Why should we not shout and sing the praises of our King, as we expect to do it in glory? Why should not a man cry out, and groan, and be in anguish of soul, as the Psalmist says, as if he were crying out of the belly of h.e.l.l, when he is convinced of sin, and realizes his danger, and is expecting, unless G.o.d have mercy, to be d.a.m.ned?
Why should he not roar for the disquietude of his spirit as much as David did? Is there anything unphilosophical in it? Is there anything contrary to the laws of mind in it? Is there anything that you would not allow under any great pressure of calamity, or realization of danger, or grief? Why should we not have this demonstration in soul matters? They had it under the old dispensation. We read, again and again, that when the people came together after a time of relapse, and backsliding, and infidelity, when G.o.d sent some flaming, burning prophet amongst them, and they were gathered on the sides of Carmel or elsewhere, that, on some occasions, the weeping, and, on other occasions, the rejoicing, was so great that they made the very ground tremble, and almost rent the heavens with the sound of their crying and rejoicing.
We are told, on one occasion, that the noise was heard afar off, and, on another, that it was as the sound of many waters. Would to G.o.d we could get men, now-a-days, so concerned about their sins and their souls, that they should thus cry out. It would be a happy day for religion and for the world if it were so. If these things are realities, I contend that this is the most sane, rational, and philosophical way of dealing with them; and I say that the ordinary, cold, heartless, formal way (and, if it is not so, it has that appearance) is unscriptural.
Somebody was talking to me about having so much feeling in religion.
I said, "My dear friend, what do you think G.o.d gave you feeling for?"
Some people seem to think it a mistake that we _have_ feelings.
Our feelings play a very important part in all our social relations.
Why would you exclude them from religion? David expressed his feelings, and was so carried away by them that he called on all creation to praise the Lord, the hills and the trees to clap their hands and be glad. Get the right kind of religion, and it will make you glad. If you have not the right kind of feeling, I am afraid you.
have not the right kind of religion. We have some enthusiasm, and when our enthusiasm dies, I am afraid we shall die, too. Nevertheless, our power is not in our enthusiasm; neither does it consist in certain views of truth, or in certain feelings _about_ truth. But it consists in whole-hearted, thorough, out-and-out surrender to G.o.d; and that, with or without feeling, is the right thing, and _that_ is the secret of our power. We have glorious feelings as the outcome; but the feeling is not the religion--the feeling is not the holiness. Holiness is the spring and source of the enthusiasm. Hence our power with the ma.s.ses of the people.
How is it that wherever we go, as an organization, these signs and wonders are wrought? Somebody said, "It is a strange thing; see what has been done at So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so. They had all tried, and you send a couple of lads or la.s.ses, and you have the town in an uproar at once. What is it? What is the secret? Will you answer the question?" Well, it is the whole-hearted, determined abandonment of everything for the King"s sake. That is it. It is going in, as the Apostles went in, determined to win souls, determined to set up the kingdom of Jesus Christ, at all costs. That is the source of our power, and if you get that, you will have power, and if you don"t get that, it matters not what else you have. I want you reasonably and calmly to see that this holiness is a real, definite blessing; that it is a level on to which the great ma.s.s of the professing Christians of this generation have not come, or even scarcely looked up. It is a high level, but it is a level on to which every one of you can come, if you will. You have heard enough about it. You are convinced you may have it. Will you have it? The Lord is sitting there; He is looking at you, and He is saying, "What is all this stir about? What is all this talk, this singing, and this praying about? Here I am. What do you want Me to do? I am ready to do it." And you say, "Lord, I want Thee to cleanse my heart from sin, and to fill me with the Holy Ghost, and to enable me to be whole- hearted and thorough in Thy service, and to go and win souls for Thee." "Very well," the Lord says, "I am ready to come into the temple, if you will clear out the rubbish. Are you willing for Me to come in? I am waiting to come in as a Refiner; but you must make a straight way for my feet. You must pick out the stones, and throw out the rubbish, and make Me a straight path."
Will you make Him a straight path? Will you trample under foot that accursed thing which has so long kept the fulness of the blessing from you? Will you give up arguing about it and trying to make out that it is not a stumbling-block, when you know it is? How many will?
I wish we had room to have a form. I am sorry we have not. With all the light you have on the subject, with what I am sure the Holy Ghost has revealed and is revealing to your souls, with all the glory that He is putting before you, and the power for usefulness and happiness, will you make this full consecration? The light of the Spirit is on you: _will you, act? Will you act?_ Every spark of light you get without obeying it, leaves your soul darker. Every time you come up to the verge of the kingdom and don"t go over, the less the probability that you ever will. I know people who have been going up and down for more than forty years, like the Israelites, and it is a question if they ever go in. You have come near again. Will you go over? You can tell the Lord without telling us, though we would like to know, and see you put your foot over the border, into this Canaan of peace and power. Will you put your foot over? Who will? who will?
Will you stand up and raise your voices to the Lord and ask Him?
CHAPTER XI.
HINDRANCES TO HOLINESS.
I shall try, in the short time I may occupy, to go straight to the point--to some of the difficulties and hindrances which I know are keeping not a few here to-day out of the enjoyment of the blessing. I know there are some here who are satisfied that this blessing is attainable, who are satisfied that G.o.d can thus keep them, as we have been singing, if they were to lean the whole weight of their need-- their soul, and body, and spirit--upon Him, and trust Him. They believe He could, and they believe He would. They have come to perceive that it is not at all a question of human strength, or human weakness, or human knowledge, but that it is simply a matter of Divine strength, fully recognized and fully trusted by human weakness. Therefore, there is no more a stumbling-block in their way about reckoning themselves holier than other people, or stronger than other people, for they recognize themselves as the very weakest and most sinful of _all_ people: but they have come to understand this blessing to be human weakness, leaning with all its weight upon Divine power; and they believe G.o.d does thus save and keep those people who do thus lean. Then, what hinders? There they stand, just where the Israelites stood, when they might have gone in and possessed the good land. "They entered not in because of unbelief,"
and for that unbelief there is a reason--a cause. They dare not venture their souls on this Divine power, because there is back in their consciousness some difficulty, some obstacle, something which is only known to themselves and the Holy Ghost, which prevents them from doing this.
When they try to jump on to the Divine strength there is something that holds them back, and they cannot make the spring. They try to forget it--they sing, and pray, and seek, to make themselves believe there is nothing, and they come up again and again right to the entrance of the goodly land, and then they try to spring in. Some of you will today, but you will not be able to spring, because there is something holding you back; and you are conscious of it, but will not allow yourselves to realize it. Now this is the point, when my dear husband read that pa.s.sage, "When they had prayed, the place was shaken," I thought, Oh! what was involved in that prayer--what does that mean? _Why_ did the glory come? Why did the Holy Ghost overshadow them? Why were they filled with G.o.d--so filled that they had to go down and could not help themselves, but went into the streets and poured it out upon the G.o.dless mult.i.tudes around them?
_Why, why_ did it come? Why do hundreds of a.s.semblies of G.o.d"s people meet and pray, but nothing comes? They hold long meetings, and make long prayers, and sing,
"We are waiting for the fire;"
but nothing comes! Why did it come on that particular occasion?
Because in that prayer was thorough, entire, everlasting self- abandonment. They came up caring for nothing but pleasing G.o.d and doing as He bade them; and the Holy Ghost alone knows when a soul arrives at that point. He will never come till the soul _does_ arrive at that point. This is the deficiency, I am satisfied, with hundreds. There they stand, right on the borders of the glory-land, but there is some wedge of gold, or Babylonish garment that they buried years ago.
They won"t think about it. They say, "Oh, it is nought, nought! That little thing would not hinder, it is so long ago." They would not, when they knew they ought, dig it up and burn it before the Lord. If this is so with any here, you _must_ dig it up, or the Holy Ghost will never come. A lady, a short time ago, was brought up to the very edge of this blessing, but there was something she felt she ought to do. She had a sum of money which she felt ought to be given up to a certain object.
She prayed and struggled, and attended prayer-meetings, and prayed long into the night; but, no, she would not face the difficulty. She said, "Oh! no; I am not satisfied in my own mind. How do I know G.o.d wants it for that purpose?" She might have struggled till now if she had not made up her mind to obey; but, the moment she did--alone, up in her bedroom, the blessing came. A gentleman came up to the penitent-form, after one of my West-end services, last season, and told me: "I am a preacher. I have been laboring in the Gospel for eight years, but I know I am utterly dest.i.tute of this power." "Do you want it?" "Oh!" he said, "I do;" and he looked as though he were sincere. "Then," I said, "what is it? There is a hindrance. It is not G.o.d"s fault. He wants you to have it He is as willing to give you the Spirit as He was Peter or Paul, and you want to have it. Now, _will you have it?_ Have you understood the conditions?" "Ah!" he said, "_that_ is the point." Now, you know I should be a false comforter if I were to try to make you believe you were right when you had not yielded that point. "Well," he said, "you see it would be cutting loose from one"s entire circle." Ah! he was led, you see, by "Christian friends." I said, "Did not the Lord Jesus cut loose from His circle to save you? and, if your Christian friends are such that to live a holy life you must cut loose from them, what are you going to do--stop in that circle, ruin your own soul, and help to ruin them, or cut loose and help to save them?" Oh! there is no profounder philosophy in any text in the Bible than that--"How can ye believe who receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from G.o.d only?" You will have to come to G.o.d not caring what anybody thinks.
As a dear lady, who is going through floods of persecution for Jesus, said, "I don"t care if they turn their backs on me, and never speak to me any more, and cast me out, and my children, too. I don"t care if I can only have His presence and follow Him." When you come to that you will get this pearl.
I know a father and mother who want this blessing,--especially the mother. They have a family of beautiful little children, but the father says, "What are we going to do for our children? It is a very serious matter cutting loose from our circle." A gentleman said to me, "I have to do _something_ for my sons. What am I to do?"
"No," I said, "you have got to do nothing for your sons. You have to train them for G.o.d, and leave G.o.d _to do for them_, and He is well able to look after His own. That is your business; train them for G.o.d, and leave G.o.d to find a niche for them, and if He can"t on earth, I warrant you He will in Heaven." People have things wrong way up now-a-days. They have the notion that they have to do this, that, and the other, for themselves and their children, instead of accepting it as their great commission that they have to propagate and push along and extend the kingdom of Jesus Christ, to seek His kingdom and His righteousness, and leave Him to look after their interests. When you come to this it will soon be done.
A FRAGMENT.
Love Him, trust Him, Him alone; Father, Keeper, Three in One.
Saviour, Master, Leader, too; Lover, Brother, ALL to you.