Chapter 4
HOW TO ENTER IN
Having tried to settle the question as to the scripturalness of the experience
of this life of full trust, and having also shown a little of what it is; the
next point is as to how it is to be reached and realized.
And first, I would say that this blessed life
must not be looked upon in any sense as an attainment but as an obtainment. We
cannot earn it, we cannot climb up to it, we cannot win it; we can do nothing
but ask for it and receive it. It is the gift of God in Christ Jesus. And where
a thing is a gift, the only course left for the receiver is to take it and
thank the giver. We never say of a gift, "See to what I have attained," and
boast of our skill and wisdom in having attained it; but we say, "See what has
been given me," and boast of the love and wealth and generosity of the giver.
And everything in our salvation is a gift. From beginning to end, God is the
giver and we are the receivers; and it is not to those who do great things, but
to those who "receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness,"
that the richest promises are made.
In order, therefore, to enter into a realized
experience of this interior life, the soul must be in a receptive attitude,
fully recognizing the fact that it is to be God's gift in Christ Jesus, and
that it cannot be gained by any efforts or works of our own. This will simplify
the matter exceedingly; and the only thing left to be considered then will be
to discover upon whom God bestows this gift, and how they are to receive it.
And to this I would answer in short, that He bestows it only upon the fully
consecrated soul, and that it is to be received by faith.
Consecration is the first thing. Not in any legal
sense, not in order to purchase or deserve the blessing, but to remove the
difficulties out of the way and make it possible for God to bestow it. In order
for a lump of clay to be made into a beautiful vessel, it must be entirely
abandoned to the potter, and must lie passive in his hands. And in order for a
soul to be made into a vessel unto God's honor, "sanctified and meet for the
Master's use, and prepared unto every good work," it must be entirely abandoned
to Him, and must lie passive in His hands. This is manifest at the first
glance.
I was once trying to explain to a physician, who
had charge of a large hospital, what consecration meant, and its necessity, but
he seemed unable to understand. At last I said to him, "Suppose, in going your
rounds among your patients, you should meet with one man who entreated you
earnestly to take his case under your especial care in order to cure him, but
who should at the same time refuse to tell you all the symptoms, or to take all
your prescribed remedies; and should say to you, `I am quite willing to follow
your directions as to certain things, because they commend themselves to my
mind as good, but in other matters I prefer judging for myself and following my
own directions.' What would you do in such a case?" I asked. "Do!" he replied
with indignation, -- "do! I would soon leave such a man as that to his own
care. For of course," he added, "I could do nothing for him, unless he would
put his whole case into my hands without any reserves, and would obey my
directions implicitly." "It is necessary then," I said, "for doctors to be
obeyed, if they are to have any chance to cure their patients?" "Implicitly
obeyed!" was his emphatic reply. "And that is consecration," I continued. "God
must have the whole case put into His hands without any reserves, and His
directions must be implicitly followed." "I see it," he exclaimed, -- "I see
it! And I will do it. God shall have His own way with me from henceforth."
Perhaps to some minds the word "abandonment"
might express this idea better. But whatever word we use, we mean an entire
surrender of the whole being to God; spirit, soul, and body placed under His
absolute control, for Him to do with us just what He pleases. We mean that the
language of our soul, under all circumstances, and in view of every act, is to
be, "Thy will be done." We mean the giving up of all liberty of choice. We mean
a life of inevitable obedience.
To a soul ignorant of God, this may look hard.
But to those who know Him, it is the happiest and most restful of lives. He is
our Father, and He loves us, and He knows just what is best, and therefore, of
course, His will is the very most blessed thing that can come to us under all
circumstances. I do not understand how it is that Satan has succeeded in
blinding the eyes of the Church to this fact. But it really would seem as if
God's own children were more afraid of His will than of anything else in life;
His lovely, lovable will, which only means loving-kindnesses and tender
mercies, and blessings unspeakable to their souls. I wish I could only show to
every one the unfathomable sweetness of the will of God. Heaven is a place of
infinite bliss because His will is perfectly done there, and our lives share in
this bliss just in proportion as His will is perfectly done in them. He loves
us, loves us, and the will of love is always blessing for its loved one. Some
of us know what it is to love, and we know that could we only have our way, our
beloved ones would be overwhelmed with blessings. All that is good, and sweet,
and lovely in life would be poured out upon them from our lavish hands, had we
but the power to carry out our will for them. And if this is the way of love
with us, how much more must it be so with our God, who is love itself. Could we
but for one moment get a glimpse into the mighty depths of His love, our hearts
would spring out to meet His will, and embrace it as our richest treasure; and
we would abandon ourselves to it with an enthusiasm of gratitude and joy, that
such a wondrous privilege could be ours.
A great many Christians actually seem to think
that all their Father in heaven wants is a chance to make them miserable, and
to take away all their blessings, and they imagine, poor souls, that if they
hold on to things in their own will, they can hinder Him from doing this. I am
ashamed to write the words, and yet we must face a fact which is making
wretched hundreds of lives.
A Christian lady who had this feeling, was once
expressing to a friend how impossible she found it to say, "Thy will be done,"
and how afraid she should be to do it. She was the mother of one only little
boy, who was the heir to a great fortune, and the idol of her heart. After she
had stated her difficulties fully, her friend said, "Suppose your little
Charley should come running to you tomorrow and say, `Mother, I have made up my
mind to let you have your own way with me from this time forward. I am always
going to obey you, and I want you to do just whatever you think best with me. I
know you love me, and I am going to trust myself to your love.' How would you
feel towards him? Would you say to yourself, `Ah, now I shall have a chance to
make Charley miserable. I will take away all his pleasures, and fill his life
with every hard and disagreeable thing I can find. I will compel him to do just
the things that are the most difficult for him to do, and will give him all
sorts of impossible commands." "Oh, no, no, no!" exclaimed the indignant
mother. "You know I would not. You know I would hug him to my heart and cover
him with kisses, and would hasten to fill his life with all that was sweetest
and best." "And are you more tender and more loving than God?" asked her
friend. "Ah, no," was the reply, "I see my mistake, and I will not be afraid of
saying `Thy will be done,' to my Heavenly Father, any more than I would want my
Charley to be afraid of saying it to me."
Better and sweeter than health, or friends, or
money, or fame, or ease, or prosperity, is the adorable will of our God. It
gilds the darkest hours with a divine halo, and sheds brightest sunshine on the
gloomiest paths. He always reigns who has made it his kingdom; and nothing can
go amiss to him. Surely, then, it is nothing but a glorious privilege that is
opening before you when I tell you that the first step you must take in order
to enter into the life hid with Christ in God, is that of entire consecration.
I cannot have you look at it as a hard and stern demand. You must do it gladly,
thankfully, enthusiastically. You must go in on what I call the privilege side
of consecration; and I can assure you, from a blessed experience, that you will
find it the happiest place you have ever entered yet.
Faith is the next thing. Faith is an absolutely
necessary element in the reception of any gift; for let our friends give a
thing to us ever so fully, it is not really ours until we believe it has been
given and claim it as our own. Above all, this is true in gifts which are
purely mental or spiritual. Love may be lavished upon us by another without
stint or measure, but until we believe that we are loved, it never really
becomes ours.
I suppose most Christians understand this
principle in reference to the matter of their forgiveness. They know that the
forgiveness of sins through Jesus might have been preached to them forever, but
it would never have become theirs consciously until they believed this
preaching, and claimed the forgiveness as their own. But when it comes to
living the Christian life, they lose sight of this principle, and think that,
having been saved by faith, they are now to live by works and efforts; and
instead of continuing to receive, they are now to begin to do. This makes our
declaration that the life hid with Christ in God is to be entered by faith,
seem perfectly unintelligible to them. And yet it is plainly declared, that "as
we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so we are to walk in Him." We received
Him by faith, and by faith alone; therefore we are to walk in Him by faith, and
by faith alone. And the faith by which we enter into this hidden life is just
the same as the faith by which we were translated out of the kingdom of
darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son, only it lays hold of a different
thing. Then we believed that Jesus was our Saviour from the guilt of sin, and
according to our faith it was unto us. Now we must believe that He is our
Saviour from the power of sin, and according to our faith it shall be unto us.
Then we trusted Him for our justification, and it became ours; now we must
trust Him for our sanctification, and it shall become ours also. Then we took
Him as a Saviour in the future from the penalties of our sins; now we must take
Him as a Saviour in the present from the bondage of our sins. Then He was our
Redeemer, now He is to be our Life. Then He lifted us out of the pit, now He is
to seat us in heavenly places with Himself.
I mean all this of course experimentally and
practically. Theologically and judicially I know that every believer has
everything the minute he is converted. But experimentally nothing is his until
by faith he claims it. "Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread
upon, that have I given unto you." God "hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ," but until we set the foot of faith
upon them they do not practically become ours. "According to our faith," is
always the limit and the rule.
But this faith of which I am speaking must be a
present faith. No faith that is exercised in the future tense amounts to
anything. A man may believe forever that his sins will be forgiven at some
future time, and he will never find peace. He has to come to the now belief,
and say by faith, "My sins are now forgiven," before he can live the new life.
And, similarly, no faith which looks for a future deliverance from the power of
sin, will ever lead a soul into the life we are describing. The enemy delights
in this future faith, for he knows it is powerless to accomplish any practical
results. But he trembles and flees when the soul of the believer dares to claim
a present deliverance, and to reckon itself now to be free from his power.
To sum up, then: in order to enter into this
blessed interior life of rest and triumph, you have two steps to take: first,
entire abandonment; and second, absolute faith. No matter what may be the
complications of your peculiar experience, no matter what your difficulties or
your surroundings or your associations, these two steps, definitely taken and
unwaveringly persevered in, will certainly bring you out sooner or later into
the green pastures and still waters of this higher Christian life. You may be
sure of this. And if you will let every other consideration go, and simply
devote your attention to these two points, and be very clear and definite about
them, your progress will be rapid and your soul will reach its desired haven
far sooner than now you can think possible.
Shall I repeat the steps, that there may be no
mistake? You are a child of God, and long to please Him. You love your precious
Saviour, and are sick and weary of the sin that grieves Him. You long to be
delivered from its power. Everything you have hitherto tried has failed to
deliver you, and now in your despair you are asking if it can indeed be, as
these happy people say, that the Lord is able and willing to deliver you.
Surely you know in your very soul that He is; that to save you out of the hand
of all your enemies is in fact just the very thing He came to do. Then trust
Him. Commit your case to Him in an absolute abandonment, and believe that He
undertakes it; and at once, knowing what He is and what He has said, claim that
He does even now fully save. Just as you believed at first that He delivered
you from the guilt of sin because He said so, believe now that He delivers you
from the power of sin because He says so. Let your faith now lay hold of a new
power in Christ. You have trusted Him as your dying Saviour, now trust Him as
your living Saviour. Just as much as He came to deliver you from future
punishment, did He also come to deliver you from present bondage. Just as truly
as He came to bear your sins for you, has He come to live His life in you. You
are as utterly powerless in the one case as in the other. You could as easily
have got yourself rid of your own sins, as you could now accomplish for
yourself practical righteousness. Christ, and Christ only, must do both for
you, and your part in both cases is simply to give the thing to Him to do, and
then believe that He does it.
A lady, now very eminent in this life of trust,
when she was seeking in great darkness and perplexity to enter in, said to the
friend who was trying to help her, "You all say, `Abandon yourself, and trust,
abandon yourself, and trust,' but I do not know how. I wish you would just do
it out loud, so that I may see how you do it."
Shall I do it out loud for you?
"Lord Jesus, I believe that Thou art able and
willing to deliver me from all the care, and unrest and bondage of my Christian
life. I believe thou didst die to set me free, not only in the future, but now
and here. I believe thou art stronger than Satan, and that thou canst keep me,
even me, in my extreme of weakness, from falling into his snares or yielding
obedience to his commands. And, Lord, I am going to trust thee to keep me. I
have tried keeping myself, and have failed, and failed most grievously. I am
absolutely helpless; so now I will trust thee. I will give myself to thee; I
keep back no reserves. Body, soul, and spirit, I present myself to thee, a
worthless lump of clay, to be made into anything thy love and thy wisdom shall
choose. And now, I am thine. I believe thou dost accept that which I present to
thee; I believe that this poor, weak, foolish heart has been taken possession
of by thee, and thou hast even at this very moment begun to work in me to will
and to do of thy good pleasure. I trust thee utterly, and I trust thee now!"
Are you afraid to take this step? Does it seem
too sudden, too much like a leap in the dark? Do you not know that the steps of
faith always "fall on the seeming void, but find the rock beneath"? A man,
having to descend a well by a rope, found, to his horror, when he was a great
way down, that it was too short. He had reached the end, and yet was, he
estimated, about thirty feet from the bottom of the well. He knew not what to
do. He had not the strength or skill to climb up the rope, and to let go was to
be dashed to pieces. His arms began to fail, and at last he decided that as he
could not hold on much longer, he might as well let go and meet his fate at
once. He resigned himself to destruction, and loosened his grasp. He fell! To
the bottom of the well it was -- just three inches!
If ever your feet are to touch the "rock
beneath," you must let go of every holding-place and drop into God; for there
is no other way. And to do it now may save you months and even years of strain
and weariness.
In all the old castles of England there used to
be a place called the keep. It was always the strongest and best protected
place in the castle, and in it were hidden all who were weak and helpless and
unable to defend themselves in times of danger. Had you been a timid, helpless
woman in such a castle during a time of siege, would it have seemed to you a
leap in the dark to have hidden yourself there? Would you have been afraid to
do it? And shall we be afraid to hide ourselves in the keeping power of our
Divine Keeper, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, and who has promised to
preserve our going out and our coming in, from this time forth and even forever
more?