Riches of Grace Part 14

When I was a boy of about thirteen, my father said to me one evening at the setting of the sun, "Water the stock." Soon some boys arrived, and, being a real boy, I forgot my work and played.

A little later my father asked, "Have you done what I told you?"

"Yes, father," I replied.

He knew I had not, and I even now recall that he said not a word but walked away in the twilight so burdened and bowed because of hearing a falsehood from his own boy that it suddenly gave him the appearance of an old man. The boys left, and I watered the stock. Then, boy like, I forgot, went to bed and slept. During the next forenoon Mother called me to her and said:

"Do you know your father neither went to bed nor slept all last night?"

I replied, "No, Mother, I do not know. Why didn't he sleep?"

Mother's answer was, "Your father spent all last night praying for you."

My saintly mother's words and tears went through my heart like an arrow and rang like a bell in my ears, and I became powerfully convicted of sin. Just following that a series of revival meetings were held which continued for several weeks. I became a seeker and had no rest until I found it in penitence and a consciousness of pardoned sin. I was the only convert during the meetings, and critics said, "He will backslide in a few weeks. The revival is a failure." But I am here to tell the story that I am still saved by grace.

I could never reward my father for that night of prevailing prayer, but he lived to see me become a minister, a missionary, and to hold the highest position on the mission field, and then the Lord called him to his eternal reward. My mother entered into rest about two years previous to that time.

It is my hope and prayer that the story of my father's night of prevailing prayer may encourage other parents to pray as he did. Parents may not always through prayer be able to break the wills of their children and compel them to surrender to Jesus, but I do believe that my father prayed until G.o.d sent such conviction through the Holy Spirit that sin became such an unbearable burden that I gladly yielded my will to the will of my G.o.d; prayed until my sins were pardoned, the burden removed, and I was genuinely converted. I firmly believe that the same heavenly Father will hear the cry of other parents, and for their encouragement I leave this testimony concerning G.o.d's answer to my father's fervent prayers.

After my conversion I rejoiced many days in the delight of that precious experience. For months I had a real and precious joy in the consciousness of pardoned sin, but after a time I found that I did not have a continuous, abiding peace and rest. There was a longing for something more than it seemed I now possessed. As a boy I tried very hard to be good, and as I look back I believe that I lived a very correct outward life. I lived among a very G.o.dly people, who set a high ideal before me, one to which I felt I could not live. I observed my daily prayers, but suffered many an inward defeat.

MY SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES

I can not now recall that I ever heard a sermon on heart-purity or victory over the power of sin. No person in the congregation where our family attended meetings professed holiness, nor do I remember that the experience was talked about. The people did speak of "having religion"

and "more religion." There were people in the congregation whom I still believe lived holy lives, and the testimony of their lives convicted me, for I knew that they had an abiding joy and peace in their religion that I had not. I therefore became very much dissatisfied with my inner life and was struggling all the time for an experience such as I knew others enjoyed.

The weekly testimony of a man who attended our prayer-meetings was, "I have just enough religion to make me miserable." That is, he had too much religion to get his pleasure out of the world and not enough to get it out of his religion. I always felt that that man told the experience I then had. For three years I endured that exceedingly unsatisfactory religious experience. I then attended a revival and went forward for prayer night after night, but no relief came to my poor burdened heart.

As my case became more desperate, I recalled the story of Jacob. He prayed until the morning, and at the rising of the sun the angel appeared and blessed him. I spent several nights in prayer, but found no relief.

GAINING THE VICTORY

On Sat.u.r.day morning about sunrise I was on a straw stack in the barnyard with a long hay-knife cutting across the stack to loosen the straw to feed the cattle. While thus working and in a despondent, meditative mood, wondering what I could do, there seemed suddenly to float out before me in the air in illuminated letters, "John three sixteen." I began to read, "G.o.d so loved the world." I reasoned then that G.o.d so loved me that "he gave his only begotten Son." All was clear thus far. Then I came to that all-inclusive word, "whosoever." I stopped at "whosoever" and recalled the story I heard of Richard Baxter, who said, "I would rather have the word 'whosoever' in John three sixteen than have Richard Baxter, for then I should at once be tempted to believe it was for some other Richard Baxter."

I reasoned, "I know that my name is in that 'whosoever.'" I then read on--"believeth on him." "Do I believe on him?" This was the next question to be settled. During several years I had, in compet.i.tion for a Sunday-school prize, recited the whole four Gospels. In thought I ran over what the New Testament said about Jesus and cried out, "I believe every word of the gospel; Lord, I do believe."

Then I read on--"should not perish." Quick as a flash I saw the weak place in my faith. I had been believing on Jesus, but feeling that I should perish. At that point I sprang to my feet on the straw stack and read it over again--"Should not perish, but have everlasting life." Then I saw that through doubt I had treated the promise as though it read "should perish and not have everlasting life." I cried out, "Lord, I will reverse it no longer. I will believe it as it reads."

Then I seemed to have another inspiration. I had long been troubled about understanding what it meant to believe. I had worked out a theory that if I could for a moment forget everything else in the world and see Jesus on the cross, that would be "exercising saving faith"; and when praying, I would find myself trying to do that. I now asked myself this question: "How do you believe your mother's promise?" The answer was at once, "I believe because I believe in my mother, the promiser." The next moment I realized that believing Mother's promises was not a mental effort and struggle such as I had been going through for years, but a mental rest. I just believed that her promise was true without any effort whatever, not because I felt it, but because Mother made it. Then I cried, "Jesus made this promise, and I believe it."

Then I waited and looked again into my heart for the feeling, but no feeling came. I then saw clearly for the first time that I was trusting partly in Jesus and partly to my feelings. Presently the Spirit showed me that feeling never saves any one, that only Jesus saves. I remember that, standing on the straw stack, I cried out, "O Jesus! I put my all on thy promise, and I will leave all with thee." But alas! again I waited for the feeling as a witness, and was sure it would come, but it did not come. I was still trusting partly in Christ and partly to feeling. At last I turned away from looking for feeling and cried aloud: "My Jesus, I stake my all on John three sixteen. If I never have any feeling and if I am lost, I will quote this promise before thee at the judgment and say, 'I cast my little all upon it and trusted it, but it failed me. It is not my fault; it is thine.'"

I had finally, after years of struggling, come where I trusted wholly "in the word of the Lord." Then suddenly I received a definite a.s.surance and great heart-warming peace and joy. At last the witness of the Spirit was mine. Leaping from the straw stack, I ran to my mother, threw my arms around her neck, and shouted, "Mother, I am fully saved! I am fully saved!"

Up to that time I had not had any teaching concerning an experience of sanctification or holiness and had heard no testimonies concerning such an experience, except the testimony of the life of Christians who were living it and professing it under another name. There was in the congregation where I worshiped a sweet-faced, white-haired saint whom we called Mother Robinson. She had prayed a drunkard husband into the kingdom, and my memory even to this day recalls her high type of Christian experience, and I want to bear my strongest possible testimony to the power there is in the testimony of a pure, sweet, and kind life.

Now after years of study and hearing the testimony of many, it is clear to me that during those years as a boy I prayed myself through to the abiding life and what I now believe to be the experience of Scriptural holiness, which, as I understand it, is such a freedom from sin, self-will, and selfishness, and such a pa.s.sionate love for Jesus, that the heart longs above all things for his approval, companionship, guidance, and blessing, and that gratefully and joyfully gives Jesus "in all things the preeminence."

Thought He Had Sinned Away His Day of Grace

EXPERIENCE NUMBER 22

The enemy of souls has laid many plans and has many devices to deceive people and hara.s.s their minds and thereby cause them to bring unnecessarily heavy burdens upon themselves. One of his common impositions is to make a person think that he has committed the unpardonable sin and that all hope of ever obtaining favor with G.o.d again is forever gone. When such persons are told that they are laboring under a delusion, and that there is hope for them; that others have felt the same way and formed the same conclusion, but afterwards learned that it was only a deception of the enemy, and were able to renounce the delusion and obtain a good experience and keep it, the answer in most cases is, "My case is different." "Had I taken advantage of past opportunities when I had a chance to do so, I might have been saved, but now it is too late."

Time after time I have labored with those who were sure that their cases were "different" from that of any one else, and that hope was beyond their reach. The situation and feelings seemed so real that no amount of reasoning or evidence to the contrary could change their minds until they became submissive enough to submit themselves to the mercy of G.o.d and accept advice and counsel and act upon it. Then they were very soon liberated from the oppressions of the enemy and set free by the grace of G.o.d.

One laboring under a deception frequently undergoes as deep suffering of mind and soul as if the situation and conditions were real. A lady once received what was supposed to be an authentic report that her son had been killed in a railway wreck. Circ.u.mstances were such that she could receive no communication from him, which apparently added evidence to the truthfulness of the story. Her mother-heart was grief-stricken. In the anguish of her bereavement she refused to be comforted. Later she was told that there was a possibility of his having escaped death, that he was probably yet alive, and that evidence had been received to that effect. No, her feelings were too real, her grief was too great, for her to be deceived, she declared. One day her son arrived home sound and well, and did not even know that there had been a train-wreck at the place whence the report came. The mother then found that her sorrow and grief had been groundless. She accepted the status of affairs, cast aside the false report and her bad feelings, and was happy.

Not long ago I met an old acquaintance, a man above seventy years of age, whom I had not seen for many years. At the time of our former meeting he was enjoying the blessings of a Christian experience and was happy in the service of the Lord. Through devotional neglect, and perhaps for other reasons, he began to entertain doubts concerning his spiritual experience, and he questioned whether or not he had any right, under the circ.u.mstances, to lay claim to Christian fellowship with those whom he knew to be spiritual. He knew of nothing sinful that he had done, and he needed not to waver in faith. But the tempter was there to suggest that he had lost his experience and might just as well give up the struggle. He then concluded that the brethren did not have confidence in him, and therefore he dropped his profession.

His heart was still tender, and he did not feel disposed to indulge in sin. In a short time he made "another start" to serve the Lord and tried to repent; but, having so little to repent over, and finding it difficult to have the same earnestness as before, he claimed the victory "by faith," but was soon in "doubting castle" again. These up-and-down experiences continued for many months, during which his spiritual realm was more down than up. Discouragement laid hold upon him, despair followed hard on his track, and the enemy whispered that it was of no use to try any more. The way began to be more and more dreary.

Occasionally, however, he was seized with a feeling of desperation to break loose from the state of lethargy into which he had fallen, but alas! his victories were of short duration. These experiences were followed by the accusations of the enemy that he was possessed with devils. Brethren who prayed with him declared that such was not the case.

The darkest scriptures of judgment and everlasting destruction seemed to have been written for him, and, as he viewed the matter, they exactly fitted his case. He had doubted so often when it seemed the Lord was offering a helping hand, that now it was too late; the last cord was severed, the last ray of hope had vanished. It was no difficult matter to believe that he had committed the unpardonable sin, and that G.o.d had forever hid his face from him. He resigned himself to the hopelessness of the situation, to meet his fate at the end of his life here upon earth and spend eternity in the regions of the lost. He spent a number of years in this condition.

At the time of our recent visit in a private home, I felt much concerned about his deliverance from such a state and condition. Upon my approaching him on the subject, he immediately informed me that it was useless to waste any of my efforts on him, for his was a hopeless case, as he had sinned against the Holy Ghost. Having met similar cases before, I a.s.sured him that there was hope for him, and told him that I could prove by the Word of G.o.d and by his own testimony that he had not committed the crime that would cause him to be forever lost, as he had supposed.

Taking my Bible, I turned to Heb. 10:29, which reads as follows: "Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of G.o.d, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?"

"Have you trodden under foot the Son of G.o.d as herein mentioned?" he was then asked. "No," he replied; "I have never doubted that there is a G.o.d nor that Jesus Christ is his Son."

"Have you counted the 'blood of the covenant an unholy thing,' that is, that there is no more virtue in the blood of Jesus Christ than there is in the blood of a cow or some other unholy thing?"

"No, sir. I have never denied the power of the blood of Jesus nor 'done despite to the Spirit of grace,'" he replied.

"Then, according to the Bible and your own testimony, you have not blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, nor, as you say, committed the unpardonable sin by sinning against the Holy Ghost. You must forever cease to entertain the idea that you have committed such a sin."

He reluctantly admitted the truth in regard to that point, but said, "There is such a thing as a man's going too far, of trifling so with G.o.d that the Spirit of G.o.d will no longer strive with him." It was clearly pointed out to him that he had never reached such an experience and that he should cast aside his doubts and fears and call upon G.o.d, and was a.s.sured that the Lord would save him. He then declared that he had no will of his own, no power to exercise his will if he had any, and was helpless. I told him that any one who could read human nature would at once conclude that he was a man of strong will-power, and that no doubt he frequently made others aware of that fact. His wife said, "That is true; he knows very well how to exercise his will-power."

He was then told to a.s.sert his manhood and take a decided stand, to which he replied:

"I have no manhood; I have no power to a.s.sert myself in any way."

"But," I replied, "you have been in this town for the past few days, and have a.s.serted your manhood during your entire visit by acting the part of a perfect gentleman. What you need to do now is to kneel with us here in prayer and yield yourself to G.o.d, and he will save you the same as he has saved others who thought they were beyond the reach of mercy."

"But my case is different; my heart is hardened like stone; I can not pray; I have no feeling."

"Almost every one in your condition thinks his case is different. If you act according to the instructions given, you will soon be different.

Your heart will be changed. Do your part in making the effort, and the Lord will help you to pray, and you will have all the feeling necessary."

We knelt in prayer, laid our hands upon his head, and with a fervent prayer rebuked the deceptive and binding power of Satan, and asked the Lord to save him. He made an effort to pray, but his few words were soon mingled with his sobs and feelings of deepest contrition. A few minutes later he arose praising G.o.d for salvation. His doubts and fears had vanished, and his burden was gone. He was once more a free man and had no more fears of death and the judgment. The next day he returned home with a joyful heart. I have frequently heard from him since that time, and he has always sent a message concerning his victorious life.

There are many others who have been hara.s.sed by the enemy in like manner; who have lost all hope of recovering their favor with G.o.d; who think that they are "different," "hard-hearted," "hopeless," "have sinned away the day of grace," "are under the control of Satan," or in some such like condition. Yet G.o.d in his love is extending mercy and only waiting for them to discard their deceptive ideas and accept his grace.