The Making of a Christian - Chambers, Oswald
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The ascendancy which he exercised in thus drawing men away from worldly callings and hopes into association with himself is quite indefinite, and even in yielding to it, the disciples could have no distinct idea what it involved.
Dr. Denney9
1. Days of his flesh
The dominating sentiment (matthew 4:1822; mark 1:1620; john 1:3542)
The average preaching of redemption deals mainly with the scenic cases, i. E. Those who have gone through exceptional experiences. But none of the early disciples had these scenic experiences, nor was their dominating sentiment a desire for deliverance from sin. They were elemental men in touch with the forces of nature, and there was something about jesus christ that fascinated them. When he said, follow me, they followed him at once; it was no cross to them. It would have been a cross not to follow, for the spell of jesus was on them. We have come to the conclusion nowadays that a man must be a conscious sinner before jesus christ can do anything for him. The early disciples were not attracted to jesus because they wanted to be saved from sin; they had no con- ception that they needed saving. They were attracted to him by a dominating sincerity, by sentiments other than those which we say make men come to jesus. There was nothing theological in their following, no consciousness of passing from death unto life, no knowledge of what jesus meant when he talked about his cross. It was on the plane where all was natural, although mysterious and wonderful.
The call of god comes only to the affinity of god in a man, and is always implicit. The beginnings of moral ascension in a mans life are never definite, but always away down in the depths of his personality where he cannot trace. These early disciples were not trammelled by possessions, and when the dominating sentiment of sincerity in their own lives was met by the fascination of jesus, they yielded at once. They did not follow jesus because they wanted to be saved, but because they could not help following. Three years later when again jesus said, follow me, it was a different matter; many things had happened during those years. The first follow me meant an external following; now it was to be a following in internal martyrdom (see john 21:1819).
2. Days of our flesh
The dominating sincerity (1 peter 2:21) the attitude of the early disciples was one of self- ignorance. Jesus christ knew perfectly well what was in them, but he did not say to john you will prove to be vindictive (see luke 9:5155), or to peter you will end in denying me (see mark 14:6672). If you had told peter that he would deny jesus with oaths and curses, he would have been amazed (see john 13:3638). Jesus christ taught the disciples the truth, and left them with the atmosphere of his own life, and slowly they began to see things differently. The disciples approached jesus by the way of sincerity, and he put them through crises until they discovered that they could never be disciples in that way; what they needed was to have the disposition of jesus given to them. The disciples were fascinated by jesus; when he said, follow me, they immediately left all and followed him, and yet after three years of the closest intimacy they all forsook him, and fled. Their following ended in disaster. The majority of men are attracted to jesus on the same line as the early disciples were. The disciples were brought to a knowledge of themselves, and we have to come to a knowledge of ourselves in the same way. We have to realise that human sincerity will never stand the strain when the ideals that fascinate a mans mind come in contact with actual life. The disaster may not be external, but in his heart a man says: i honestly tried my best to serve jesus christ; i did decide for him; in all sincerity i gave all i had to the ideals he presents, but i cannot go on; the new testament presents ideals beyond my attainment. I wont lower my ideals, although i can never hope to make them actual. Our lord says to such a one: come unto me, . . . And i will give you rest, i. E. , i will make the ideal actual. But a sense of need must arise first. As long as we deal with abstractions, we have no sense of need. Apart from jesus christ there is an unbridgeable gap between the ideal and the actual; the only way out is a personal relationship to him. The early dis- ciples were put through crises in order to reveal them to themselves. Jesus was never in a hurry with them;
To themselves. Jesus was never in a hurry with them; he never explained; he simply stated the truth and told them that when the holy ghost was come, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever i have said unto you. To- day jesus christ is at work in ways we cannot tabulate; lives are being drawn to him in a thousand and one incalculable ways; an atmosphere is being created, seeds are being sown, and men are being drawn nearer to the point where they will see him.
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They could do what they could not do before, because he enabled them to do it, and the sense of this is a rudimentary form of this specifically christian consciousness. Dr. Denney
1. Days of his flesh
The dominating sentiment which attracted the early disciples to jesus was not a sense of conviction of sin; they had no violent sin to turn from, and consequently no conscious need of salvation. They were not sinners in the ordinary accepted sense of the term, but honest, sincere men, and they were attracted to jesus by something more difficult to state than the desire for deliverance from sin. The spell of jesus was on them, and when he said, follow me, they fol- lowed at once, although they could have had no idea what the following would involve. The call of god is never articulate, it is always implicit.
There was in the disciples the one fact more which put them in one kingdom and jesus christ in another kingdom. Our lord was never impatient. He simply planted seed thoughts in their minds and surrounded them with the atmosphere of his own life. He did not attempt to convince them, but left mistakes to correct themselves, because he knew that eventually the truth would bear fruit in their lives. How differently we would have acted! We get impatient and take men by the scruff of the neck and say: you must believe this and that. You cannot make a man see moral truth by persuading his intellect. When he, the spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth.
The desire to serve (matthew 20:22) jesus answered and said, . . . Are ye able to drink the cup that i am about to drink? They say unto him, we are able (rv). The disciples would have gone any length to prove their devotion to jesus (cf. Matthew 26:35). It was true devotion, but it wilted because it was based on an entire ignorance of themselves. In the end they all forsook him, and fled, not because they wanted to, but because they did not know how to go on. Jesus put the disciples through crises to reveal them to themselves and bring them to the place of receiving the holy spirit. They could not see their need to receive the holy spirit until they found out that they were spiritual paupers. Simon, Simon, behold, satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat (luke 22:31 rv ). Jesus allowed peter to go over a moral precipice and deny that he ever knew him, before peter realised what it was that kept him from being a disciple. It is not necessary for everyone to go through the way of peters sifting, but the sifting must come in some form or other. The preaching of the gospel of temperament will not do for the making of disciples; nor will jesus shield us in the slightest degree from any of the requirements of discipleship. The early disciples were honest, sincere, zealous men; they had given up everything to follow jesus; their sense of the heroic was grand, but where did it all end? They all forsook him, and fled. They came to realise that no human earnestness or sincerity on earth can ever begin to fulfil what jesus demands of a disciple. Then after the resurrection, jesus breathed on them, and saith unto them, receive ye the holy ghost. They had come now to the end of themselves and all self-sufficiency, and in their destitution they were willing to receive the gift of the holy spirit. Their eyes were opened, and they knew him; their inner consciousness was opened, there was a totally new power on the inside. They could do what they could not do before, because he enabled them to do it. But they had first of all to be brought within the moral frontier of need before they realised they were powerless to live and move in the kingdom where jesus lived.
2. Days of our flesh the determination to serve (luke 10:20) natural devotion may be all very well to attract men to jesus, to make them feel the fascination of his claims; but natural devotion will never make a dis- ciple, it will always deny jesus somewhere or other. To-day, as in the days of his flesh, men are being drawn to jesus by their dominating sincerity, but human sincerity is not enough to make a man a disciple of jesus christ. There are many to-day who are sincere, but they are not real; they are not hypocrites, but perfectly honest and earnest and desirous of ful- filling what jesus wants of them, but they really can- not do it, the reason being that they have not received the holy spirit who will make them real. The modern phrase we hear so often, decide for christ, is most misleading, because it puts the emphasis on the wrong thing, and is apt to present jesus christ in a false way as someone in need of our allegiance. A decision cannot hold for ever, because a man is the same after making it as before, and there will be a reaction sooner or later. Whenever a man fails in personal experience it is because he has never received anything. There is always a positive difference in a man when he has received somethingnew powers begin to manifest themselves. Nothing has any power to alter a man save the incoming of the life of jesus, and that is the only sign that he is born again. The bedrock in jesus christs kingdom is not sincerity, not deciding for christ, not a determination to serve him, but a complete and entire recognition that we cannot begin to do it; then, says jesus, blessed are you. Jesus christ can do wonder- ful things for the man who enters into his kingdom through the moral frontier of need. Decisions for christ fail not because men are not in earnest, but because the bedrock of christianity is ignored. The bedrock of christianity does not lie in vowing or in strength of will; to begin with it is not ethical at all, but simply the recognition of the fact that i have not the power within me to do what my spirit longs to do. Come unto me, said jesus, not decide for me. When i realise my inability to be what the new testament tells me i should be, i have to come to jesus just as i am. I realise that i am an abject pau- per, morally and spiritually; if ever i am going to be what jesus wants me to be, he must come in and do it. Jesus christ claims on the basis of his redemption that he can put into any man who is consciously poor enough to receive it, his own disposition, i. E. The ability not only to will but to do (see philippians 2:1213). The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where jesus christ works. If you are trying to live up to a standard of belief and find you have not the power to do it, be humble enough to recognise that jesus christ knows more about the matter than you do. He has pledged his fathers honour to give you the holy spirit if you ask him if ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly father give the holy spirit to them that ask him? (luke 11:13). The holy spirit at work in our personal lives enables us to make the ideal and the actual one, and we begin slowly to discern that we have been brought into the place where jesus christ tells. The beginning of spiritual life is away down where it cannot be traced; the theological explanation will emerge presently. The first thing a man needs is to be born into the kingdom of god by receiving the holy spirit, and then slowly and surely be turned into a disciple. The entrance into the kingdom of god is always through the moral frontier of need. At any turn of the road the touch may come.
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The holy spirit is the missing factor in our personality, and without it we cannot be altogether as god wants us to be. An abiding gift makes an abiding change in the person to whom the gift is made.
Selby
1. In the days of his resurrection
Jesus put the early disciples through crises until they discovered that they could not be disciples by means of ordinary human sincerity and devotion. Human earnestness and vowing cannot make a man a disciple of jesus christ any more than it can turn him into an angel; a man must receive something, and that is the meaning of being born again. When once a man is struck by his need of the holy spirit, god will put the holy spirit into his spirit. In regeneration, a mans personal spirit is energised by the holy spirit, and the son of god is formed in him (see galatians 1:1516; 4:19). This is the new testament evangel, and it needs to be re-stated. New birth refers not only to a mans eternal salvation, but to his being of value to god in this order of things; it means infinitely more than being delivered from sin and from hell. The gift of the essential nature of god is made efficacious in us by the entering in of the holy spirit; he imparts to us the quickening life of the son of god, and we are lifted into the domain where jesus lives (see john 3:5). Our creeds teach us to believe in the holy spirit: the new testament says we must receive him. The man who is crumpled up with sin is the one who most quickly comes to realise his need. It takes the upright man a long while to realise that his natural virtues are the remnants of a design which has been
Broken, and that the only way the design can be ful- filled is by his being made all over again. Marvel not that i said unto thee, ye must be born again. The bedrock in jesus christs kingdom is poverty, not possession; weakness, not strength of will; infirmity of character, not goodness; a sense of absolute poverty, not decisions for christ. Blessed are the poor in spirit. That is the entrance, and it takes a long time to bring us to a knowledge of our own poverty. The greatest blessing we ever get from god is to know that we are destitute spiritually.
The revelation of christ (luke 24:16, 31) the disciples were with jesus for three years, but they only once discerned him, in the one intuitive flash recorded in matthew 16, when it was revealed to peter who jesus was. Our lord never sent the disci- ples out on the ground that he had done something for them, but only on the ground that they had seen him (cf. John 9:3536; 10:1418). Mary magdalene had had seven devils cast out of her, but it was not until jesus revealed himself to her after his resurrec- tion that he saidgo tell my brethren. . . . The man who has seen jesus can never be daunted; the man who has only a personal testimony as to what jesus has done for him may be daunted, but nothing can turn the man who has seen him; he endures as seeing him who is invisible. Is my knowledge of jesus born of inner spiritual perception, or is it only what i have learned by listening to others? Have i something in my life that con- nects me with the lord jesus as my personal saviour? All spiritual history must have a personal knowledge for its bedrock.
2. In the days of our regeneration
Every man has need of new birth. Verily, verily, i say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of god ( john 3:3). Jesus did not speak these words to a man down and out in sin, but to a sterling, worthy, upright man. The conception of new birth in the new testament is not a conception of something that springs out of us, but of something that enters into us. Just as our lord came into human history from without, so he must come into us from without. Our new birth is the birth of the life of the son of god into our old human nature, and our human nature has to be transfigured by the indwelling life of the son of god. Have i allowed my personal human life to become a bethlehem for the son of god? It is not that god patches up my natural virtues, but that i learn by obedience to make room for jesus christ to exhibit his disposition in me. It is impossible to imitate the disposition of jesus. Am i becoming the birthplace of the son of god (see luke 1:35), or do i only know the miracle of gods changing grace?
The realisation of christ ( john 20:28) the one great characteristic of being born from above (rv mg) is that i know who jesus is. It is a discern- ment; something has happened on the inside, the surgery of events has opened my eyes. Is jesus christ a revelation to me, or is he simply an historical character? How are we to get the revelation of who jesus is? Very simply. Jesus said that the holy spirit would glorify him, and we can receive the holy spirit by asking (see luke 11:13); then we too shall be in the same category with peter, and jesus will say, blessed art thou, . . . For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven. We can only know the father through the son (see mat- thew 11:27), and regeneration means that god puts into my spirit the spirit of his son. Ask god on the authority of jesus to give you the holy spirit, and he will do so; but you will never ask until you have struck the bottom board of your need.
When i asked god to give me the holy spirit, he did so, and what a transformation took place! Life became heaven on earth after being hell on earth. Never say that jesus has done in you what you know he has not done. God comes to any man instanter when he asks, and the man will realise the difference in his actual experience; when things happen he is amazed at the change that has been wrought, not by an effort of his will, but by banking on the new power within.
When we receive the holy spirit, we receive the quickening life that lifts us into the domain where jesus lives and we have the revelation of who he is. The secret of the christian is that he knows the absolute deity of jesus christ. Has jesus made any difference to us in our actual life? The essence of christianity is not a creed or a doctrine, but an illumination that emancipates us i see who jesus is. It is always a surprise, never an intellectual conception. The wind bloweth where it listeth, . . . So is every one that is born of the spirit.
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It is the true nature of the pentecostal experience to pro- duce a congruity between the message and the messenger. The gospel has to be proclaimed, it has to be commended, it has to be announced, but it has to be adorned. The holy ghost will fall on those who hear the word when it has fallen on those who speak the word.
Selby
My spiritual life is based on some word of god made living in me; when i transact on that word, i step into the moral frontier where jesus works. He says, come unto me; ask, and it shall be given you commitment is always required. An intellectualist never pushes an issue of will. Our lord uses the word believe in a moral sense, not in an intellectual sense. Commit yourself to me. We are to believe in a per- son, not to believe for something. This is the work of god, that ye believe. . . . Christianity is not a matter of deciding for christ, nor of making vows, but of receiving something from god on the basis of his promise in luke 11:13. The reception of the holy spirit is the maintained attitude of the believer, be being filled with the spirit. The way of his entrance into us is the knowledge of our own poverty.
1. In the days of his resurrection
The promise of the highest (luke 24:4953; acts 1:4) the reason the disciples had to tarry until the day of pentecost was not merely that they might be fit- ted to receive the promise: they had to wait until the lord was glorified historically, for not until in the decrees of god the fullness of time was reached that the son of god should be glorified and ascend to the right hand of the father, did the personal holy spirit descend (see john 15:26; acts 2:33). The parenthesis in john 7:39 (for the holy ghost was not yet given; because that jesus was not yet glorified) does not apply to us. The holy spirit has been given; jesus has been glorified; the waiting depends upon our fitness, not upon gods providence. The reception of the holy ghost depends entirely upon moral preparation. I must abide in the light which the holy ghost sheds and be obedient to the word of god; then when the power of god comes upon such obedience there will be the manifestation of a strong family likeness to jesus. It is easier to be swayed by emotions than to live a life shot through with the holy spirit, a life in which jesus is glorified. The holy spirit is absolutely honest, he indicates the things that are right and the things that are wrong. Tarry ye . . . Until . . . This is the new testament conception of fasting, not from food only but from everything, until the particular thing we have been told to expect is fulfilled. Fasting means concentration in order that the purpose of god may be developed in our lives. . . . Until ye be endued with power from on high. There is only one power from on high, a holy power that transfigures morality. Never yield to a power unless you know its character. Spiritualism is more than trickery; it has hold of powers that are not characterised by the holy integrity of jesus. Jesus christ gives the power of his own disposi- tion to carry us through if we are willing to obey. That is why he is apparently so merciless to those of us who have received the holy spirit, because he makes his demands according to his disposition, not according to our natural disposition. On the basis of the redemption god expects us to erect characters worthy of the sons of god. He does not expect us to carry on evangelical capers, but to manifest the life of the son of god in our mortal flesh.
2. In the days of our regeneration
The sovereign preference ( john 21:1517) our lord here is not only reinstating peter, but laying down the basis of the apostolic office, and he bases it on love. Lovest thou me more than these? There is not the slightest strand of delusion left in peters mind about himself; he has come to an end of all his self-sufficiency (cf. John 13:37), and the question of his lord is a revelation to himself as to how much he does love himlord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that i love thee. Love is the sovereign preference of my person for another person, and when the holy spirit is in a man, that other person is jesus. The only lover of the lord jesus christ is the holy ghost (see romans 5:5). When a man has entered into a personal relationship with jesus by means of the reception of the holy spirit, the first characteristic of that relationship is the nourishing of those who believe in jesus. Lovest thou me? . . . Feed my sheep. That is what we are saved for, not to feed our converts, or to promulgate our explanation of things, but to be sent out by christ, possessed of his spirit, to feed his sheep. There is no release from that commission.
When we are young in grace we go where we want to go; but jesus says, when thou shalt be old, . . . Another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. The reference to peters death by crucifixion has a symbolic meaning for the real innerness of being fastened for discipline. It is this stage of spiritual experience that brings us into touch
With the spirit of jesus in that even christ pleased not himself. This is the crisis of discipleship. We do not object to being delivered from sin, but we do not intend to give up the right to ourselves; it is this point that is balked. Jesus will never make us give up our right to ourselves; we must do it of our own deliber- ate choice.
Our lord always talks about discipleship with an if. If any man will be my disciplethose are the conditions (see luke 14:2627, 33). And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, follow me. When three years before jesus said, follow me, peter did it easily; the fascination of jesus was upon him, and he followed with- out any hesitation. The one being peter did not know was himself, and he came to the place where he denied jesus with oaths and curses, and his heart broke. Then he received the holy spirit; and again jesus says, follow me. There is only one lodestar in peters life now, the lord jesus christ; he is to follow jesus now in the submission of his will and his intelligence to him.
The way jesus dealt with the disciples is the way he deals with us. He surrounded the disciples with an atmosphere of his own life and put in seed thoughts, that is, he stated his truth, and left it to come to fruition. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now, i. E. You are not in the domain where you can understand. The dis- ciples did not understand what jesus taught them in the days of his flesh; but his teaching took on new meaning when once they received the holy spirit (see john 14:26; 16:13).
Redemption means that jesus christ can give me his own disposition, and all the standards he gives are based on that disposition. Jesus christs teaching is for the life he puts in.
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The victory that overcomes the world is not human love, but christian faith; it is not won by the natural heart, but by the re-creating cross. Forsyth10
1. In the days of his ascension
The promise of authoritative lordship (acts 1:8) there is only one lord of men, the lord jesus christ, and yet he never insists upon his author- ity; he never says thou shalt; he takes the patient course with us, as he did with the early disciples. When they received the holy spirit, he took abso- lute control of them, and jesus christs teachings took on new meaning. Naturally we do not pay any attention to what jesus says unless it is in agreement with our own conceptions; we come to realise that jesus christ does not tell outside certain moral fron- tiers. The teaching of jesus only begins to apply to us when we have received the disposition that ruled him. Jesus christ makes human destiny depend entirely upon a mans relationship to himself (see john 3:36). According to our lord, the bedrock of membership in the christian church is a personal revelation from god as to who jesus is, and a public declaration of it (cf. Matthew 15:1519). Our lord taught his lordship to his disciples, and said that after he had ascended he would send forth the holy spirit, who would be the disposer of affairs, both individual and international. We have not made jesus christ lord, we have not given up the right to ourselves to him, consequently we continually muddle our affairs by our own intuitions and desires for our own ends. Both nations and individuals have tried christianity and abandoned it, because it has been found too difficult; but no man has ever gone through the crisis of deliberately making jesus lord and found him to be a failure. God is no respecter of persons. Christianity cuts out a mans personal prejudices. A moral earthquake was required before peter recognised that god was the same to the crowd outside as to those within (see acts 10). We are apt to imagine that god will only work according to precedent. The holy ghost is world-wide. God says that he will pour out his spirit upon all flesh ( joel 2:28). Men who are not the servants of god may have a right vision in view for the human race, a vision of the time when men shall live as brothers. The difference does not lie in the vision, because the source of the vision is the spirit of god; it lies in the way the vision is to be fulfilled. The servant of god knows that it can be fulfilled in only one way, viz. , on the basis of redemption. Your sons and your daughters refers to the men who have no concern about the redemptive point of view.
The brotherhood of the new testament is indeed meant to cover the race at last, but it is the brother- hood of christian faith and love, not of mankind.
Forsyth
All men are brothers, but they are not the broth- ers of christ until they have become so by a moral likeness of disposition. As our lord ascended he stretched forth his hands; the last the disciples saw of jesus was his pierced hands. The pierced hands are emblematic of the atonement. If any man shall say unto you, lo, here is christ, or there; believe it not. The declara- tion of the angel was that it is this same jesus who is to come again, with the marks of the atonement on him. The wounded hands and feet are a symbol of the redeemer who will come again. There are no marks of atonement in the labour christ, or the socialist christ, or the christian science christ.
2. In the days of our apprehension
The sacramental personality (ephesians 4:812) up to the time of the transfiguration, our lord had exhibited the normal, perfect life of a man; after the transfiguration everything is unfamiliar to us. From the transfiguration on wards, we are dealing not so much with the life our lord lived as with the way in which he made it possible for us to enter into his life. On the mount of ascension the transfiguration was completed, and our lord went back to his primal glory; but he did not go back simply as son of god: he went back as son of man as well as son of god. That means there is freedom of access now for anyone straight to the very throne of god through the ascension of the son of man. At his ascension our lord entered heaven, and he keeps the door open for humanity to enter. Our lord told the disciples that the sign of his ascension would be that he would send forth the promise of my father upon them (luke 24:49). The holy spirit is not this same jesus, he is the bond-servant of the son of god, doing in human lives all that jesus did for them. The holy spirit is in complete subjection to the person of the redeemer for the purposes of redemption, as our lord was in subjection to the father (see john 5:19; 16:13). Notice the gifts that the apostle paul says jesus sent after he ascendedviz. , apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachersfor the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of christ. The test of a preacher or teacher is that as we listen to him we are built up in our faith in jesus christ and in our intimacy with him; otherwise he is not a gift from god. To-day we are apt to test the preacher on the ground of his personality and not by his building up of the saints. My sheep hear my voice, said jesuspreaching and teaching that comes from a central relationship to himself. Lovest thou me? . . . Feed my sheep. Once the crisis of identification with jesus is passed, the characteristic of the life is that we keep open house for the universe. The saint is at home anywhere on mother earth; he dare be no longer parochial or denominational; he belongs to no particular crowd, he belongs to jesus christ. A saint is a sacramental personality, one through whom the presence of god comes to others (see john 7:3739). Till we all attain . . . Unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of christ (ephesians 4:13 rv ). The personal holy spirit builds us up into the body of christ. All that jesus christ came to do is made ours experimentally by the holy spirit, and all his gifts are for the good of the whole body, not for indi- vidual exaltation. Individuality must go in order that the personal life may be brought out into fellowship with god. By the baptism of the holy ghost we are delivered from the husk of independent individuality, our personality is awakened and brought into communion with god. We too often divorce what the new testament never divorces. The baptism of the holy ghost is not an experience apart from christ: it is the evidence of the ascended christ. It is not the baptism of the holy ghost that changes men, but the power of the ascended christ coming into mens lives by the holy ghost that changes them. Ye shall be witnesses unto me. This great pentecostal phrase puts the truth for us in unforgettable words. Witnesses not so much of what jesus christ can do, but witnesses unto me, a delight to the heart of jesus, a satisfaction to him wherever he places us.
A saints life is in the hands of god as a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at some- thing the saint cannot see; he stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says: i cannot stand any more. But god does not heed; he goes on stretching until his purpose is in sight, then he lets fly. We are here for gods designs, not for our own. We have to learn that this is the dispensation of the humiliation of the saints. The christian church has blundered by not recognising this. In another dispensation the manifestation of the saints will take place, but in this dispensation we are to be disciples of jesus christ, not following our own convictions but remaining true to him.
The great lack to-day is of people who will think along christian lines; we know a great deal about salvation but we do not go on to explore the unsearchable riches of christ. We do not know much about giving up the right to ourselves to jesus christ, or about the intense patience of hanging in in perfect certainty that what Jesus says is true.