Life talks; a series of Bible talks on the Christian life

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Life

Talks

By

James H. McConkey

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4510
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1911

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PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY

FROM THE LIBRARY OF
ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER

BV 4510 .M2 1911
McConkey, James H. 1858-

1937.
Life talks

Life Tal

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APR 1 1959

A Series of Bible Talks on the
Christian Life

V

By James H. McConkey

First Edition

1911

Published by

FRED KELKER

P. O. Box 216

iARRISBURG, Pa., U. S. A.

This book is not sold, but will be sent
to any address free of charge, as we feel
led. Its circulation is supported entirely
by voluntary offerings.

Copyrighted, 191 1,

By James H. McConkey,

Wrightsville, Pa.

Chastening.

"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." —
Heb. 12:6.

How deep is the mystery of God's chastening
of His children ! And how the soul shrinks at
the very mention of the word ! Yet, in this He-
brews passage is set forth some of the most pre-
cious teaching of God's Word as to His loving
dealing with the lives of His own. Let us give
heed to it. For it touches the deeps of Christian
experience in that it brings us face to face with
God's wondrous grace in over-ruling the mystery
of suffering to the enrichment and unspeakable
blessing of the lives of His children. And let us
note, first, that

Chastening is God's ''child-training.''

That is what the word means. It is built upon
the Greek word ''child." It is the root-word for
"child" with the verb termination added to it.
It means *'to deal with as a child," to ''child-
train." Nine times in the passage occurs the
word "son," "child," and "father." God is speak-
ing to His own. We are His own dear children.
5

6 UFB TALKS.

He has brought us into His great family. And
now having saved us, He is going to train us. Up
there is the homeland and the glory ; down here
is the suffering. He is even over-ruling the suf-
fering to child-train us for the glory. And thus
what sweetness and preciousness flow forth from
this much mis-understood fragment of His Word
as we invest it with this its literal significance.
Let us read it into the whole passage and mark
the blessing in it.

* * * *

''My son, despise not thou the child-training
of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of
Him: for zvhom the Lord loveth He child-train-
eth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.
If ye endure child-training^ God dealeth with
you as with sons: for zvhat son is he whom the
father child-traineth not? But if ye be without
child-training, whereof all are partakers, then
ye are bastards, and not sons. Purthermore we
have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us,
and we gave them reverence; shall we not much
rather be in subjection to the father of spirits,
and livef For they verily for a fezv days child-
trained us after their own pleasure; but He for
our profit, that we might be partakers of His
holiness. Now no child-training for the present
seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless
afterzvard it yicldeth the peaceable fruit of right-
eousness unto them zvhich are exercised thereby."

chastening: 7

Chastening is for purification.

Does God have a grudge against us? Is God
trying as it were, to "get even" with us? Is
God's ''child-training" a kind of parental revenge
for childish wrong-doing? Oft-times we think
so. But it is far from the truth. ''For they"
(our earthly parents) verily for a few days
child-trained us after their own pleasure, but
He FOR OUR PROFIT, that we might be partakers
OF His holiness.^^ (v. io.) God's one supreme
purpose in child-training us, is purification. He
is seeking to purge from us all that mars the like-
ness of Jesus Christ within us. It is His own
holiness that He is seeking to perfect within us.

A visitor was watching a silversmith heating
the silver in his crucible. Hotter and hotter grew
the fires. All the while the smith was closely
scanning the crucible. Presently the visitor said :
"Why do you watch the silver so closely? What
are you looking for?" "I am looking for my
face," was the answer. "When I see my own
image in the silver, then I stop. The work is
done." Why did the silversmith light the fires
under the silver? To purify and perfect it. Is
God's child-training an executioner visiting upon
us the wrath of God? Nay, it is rather a cleans-
ing angel pouring forth upon us the love of God.
The furnace, the suffering, the agony of child-
training, what do they mean ? God is looking for
a face! It is the face of His Son. "For He

8 LIFE TALKS.

hath fore-ordained us to be conformed to the
image of His Son. And He is purging from us
in child-training all that dims that image. There-
fore, child of God, do not be associating chasten-
ing only with the word "chastise." Couple it
also with that beautiful word ''chastity," the jew-
el of perfect, spotless purity of heart and life.
Thus ''chasten" is to "chaste-en/' It is to make
chaste, to make pure, spiritually. To purge, to
cleanse, to purify — that is God's great purpose in
all His "child-training."

Like all true parents, therefore, God has a
model, a pattern to which He is fashioning the
lives of His children. That pattern is Jesus
Christ. And God's great purpose is that Christ
should be "formed in us." Thus the will of the
Father is perfect. But the will of the child must
be plastic. For how can the will of the Father
be carried out unless the will of the child be
yielded? Otherwise may not the child baffle at
every step the highest purpose of the Father for
the life of the child? You can Jo anything with
an obedient child. You can do nothing with a
disobedient one. Wherefore the first great lesson
God is seeking to teach in chastening is —

* * * *

OBI^DIHNCE.

"Though He were a Son yet learned He obedi-
ence through the things which He suffered" is
the wondrous word spoken of the Lord Himself.

CHASTENING. 9

And have you not noted how true this is in the
lives of all God's children? The chamber of suf-
fering— is it not the birth-place of obedience?
Is not the crowning grace of utter submission to
His will wrought out in the place of affliction as
nowhere else ? Go sometimes into such a chamber
of suffering. There lies one of God's "shut-ins."
For years she has been in the fiery furnace of
affliction. By and by you express the hope that
this affliction may pass away. A smile flits over
the wan face. Quickly from the trembling lips
drops this sentence: ''If it be God's will." — Not
her own will, but God's! That is the first
thought. The words, the spirit, the life of the
sufferer all image forth one great truth — abso-
lute submission to the will of God. Somehow —
we know not how — but, somehow, this spirit of
obedience, of perfect submission to the will of
God is wrought out in the furnace and the cru-
cible as in no other experience of life. How
many of us strong-willed men and women have
found that to be true !

We recall a striking story from the lips of a
friend. A lady was summering in Switzerland.
One day she started out for a stroll. Presently,
as she climbed the mountain-side, she came to a
shepherd's fold. She walked to the door and
looked in. There sat the shepherd. Around him
lay his flock. Near at hand, on a pile of straw,
lav a single sheep. It seemed to be in suffering.
Scanning it closely, the lady saw that its leg was

10 LIPE TALKS.

broken. At once her sympathy went out to the
suffering sheep. She looked up inquiringly to
the shepherd. **How did it happen?" she said.
To her amazement, the shepherd answered : "Ma-
dam, I broke that sheep's leg." A look of pain
swept over the visitor's face. Seeing it, the
shepherd went on: "Madam, of all the sheep in
my flock, this one was the most wayward. It
never would obey my voice. It never would fol-
low in the pathway in which I was leading the
flock. It wandered to the verge of many a peril-
ous cliff and dizzy abyss. And not only was it
disobedient itself, but it was ever leading the
other sheep of my flock astray. I had before
had experience with sheep of this kind. So I
broke its leg. The first day I went to it with
food, it tried to bite me. I let it lie alone for a
couple of days. Then, I went back to it. And
now, it not only took the food, but licked my
hand, and showed every sign of submission and
even affection. And now let me tell you some-
thing. When this sheep is well, as it soon will
be, it v/ill be the model sheep of my flock. No
sheep will hear my voice so quickly. None will
follow so closely at my side. Instead of leading
its mates astray, it will now be an example and
a guide for the wayward ones, leading them, with
itself, in the path of obedience to my call. In
short, a complete transformation will have come
into the life of this wayward sheep. It has
learned obedience through its suffering.'*

CHASTENING. ti

Friend, from the suffering of bafiled ])lans
which have brought you the keenest disappoint-
ment of Hfe: from the suffering of personal be-
reavements v^hich have torn from your presence
loved ones unspeakably precious to your soul ;
from the suffering of temporal losses and broken
fortunes ; from the suffering which has stalked
into your life through the wil fullness and sin of
others ; from the suffering which seemed at times
to bring you to the brink of a broken faith and a
broken heart; yea, suffering one, out of your
very agony of heart and soul, somehow, oh, some-
how, the eternal God of love and mercy is seek-
ing to bring into your life the supremest blessing
that can enrich and glorify that life — the blessing
of a human will yielded to the will of God.

And to be yielded to the will of God — what a
place is that for you ! It means more than sil-
ver and gold ; more than gratified desires and am-
bitions ; more than all the sweet blandishments
of friendship ; more than all the praises of men ;
more than all the prizes of fame ; yea, more than
the attainment of all your highest earthly aims
and strivings is this richest and deepest of all
blessings, to be hidden, sunken, swallowed up in
the will of God for all time and amid all circum-
stances. And it is this that God is seeking to
teach you through chastening. It is into this
hiding place of peace and power from which the
world can never dislodge you, that God is striv-
ing to bring you by the way of tribulation, disap-

12 LIFE TALKS.

pointment and pain. All that brings you there
is worth its costliest price of blood and suffering.
Rather than the life out of His will nothing can
be too dear-bought that brings us into that will.
Rather than miss it, we can spare nothing from
our lives that will compass it.

And, now, as God brings us into this place of
obedience, He is able to work out in us the next
rich out-come of His child-training, and that is :

3|C 5|C ^ JjC

Fruitage:.

"Afterward it yieldeth . . . :^ruit.'^ (v. ii.)

The summei showers are falling. The poet
stands by the window watching them. They are
beating and buffeting the earth with their fierce
down-pour. But the poet sees in his imaginings
more than the showers which are falling before
his eyes. He sees myriads of lovely flowers
which shall soon be breaking forth from the
watered earth, filling it with matchless beauty
and fragrance. And so he sings :

"It isn't raining rain for me, it's raining daffodils;

In every dimpling drop I see wild flowers upon the

hills.
A cloud of gray engulfs the day, and overwitehns the

town ;
It isn't raining rain for me: it's raining roses down."

Perchance some one of God's chastened chil-
dren is even now saying: "O God, it is raining

CHASTENING. 13

hard for me to-night. Testings are raining upon
me which seem beyond my power to endure.
Disappointments are raining fast, to the utter de-
feat of all my chosen plans. Bereavements are
raining into my life which are making my shrink-
ing heart quiver in its intensity of suffering. The
rain of affliction is surely beating down upon my
soul these days." Withal, friend, you are mis-
taken. It isn't raining rain for you. It's rain-
ing blessing. For, if you will but believe your
Father's word, under that beating rain are spring-
ing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and
beauty as never before grew in that stormless,
un-chastened life of yours. You indeed see the
rain. But, do you see, also, the flowers? You
are pained by the testings. But God sees the
sweet flower of faith which is up-springing in
your life under those very trials. You shrink
from the suffering. But God sees the tender
compassion for other sufferers which is finding
birth in your soul. You see the disappointments,
but God sees the sweet submission to His divine
and perfect will which is growing out of the very
same. Your heart winces under the sore be-
reavement. But God sees the deepening and en-
riching which that sorrow has brought to you.
It isn't raining afflictions for you. It is raining
tenderness, love, compassion, patience and a
thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed
Spirit which are bringing into your life such a
spiritual enrichment as all the fulness of worldly

14 LIFE TALKS.

prosperity and ease was never able to beget in
your innermost soul.

And are you saying: ''But, what a fruitless
branch I must be that God must needs so to
purge me?" Nay, not so. Have you not no-
ticed what kind of branches it is that God
purges? Hear His word: "Every branch that
beareth fruit, He purgeth it" (Jno. 15: 2). It is
not the fruitless but the fruitful branch which
is purged. And why ? "That it may bring forth
more fruit." Purging is, therefore, not the proof
of worthlessness, but the proof of fruit. For it
is only the fruit bearers that are purged. The
others are "taken away." Wherefore His purg-
ing is both the proof that there is fruit, and the
pledge that there shall be more.

* * * *

God does not expect us to enjoy chastening, but

to ENDURE it for the sake of its aet-

ERWARD. (v. II.)

Sometimes we reproach ourselves because we
are not enjoying affliction. We ought to be like
Paul, who, we say, "rejoiced in tribulation." But
do we think by this that Paul really enjoyed
tribulation? Surely not. When they knouted
his naked back with the iron points of the leather-
thonged scourge, think you he enjoyed it? The
stones they hurled at him were no sweet-meat
missies tossed by sportive hands in friendly car-
nival. They were business-like, merciless, jag-

CHASTENING. 15

ged, and went home to their target with blows
that crashed him into bloody insensibility. Think
you he enjoyed that? The ''perils by false breth-
ren" too — do you know what that is? — To have
a friend play you false — one whom you had
taken to your heart of hearts, one whom you
leaned upon, and to whom you poured out your
soul, what is that but the stiletto-stab that makes
the blood spurt from every vein in your inner-
most being? Did yoti enjoy that? Surely not.
Well, neither did Paul. Neither does any man
with flesh, and blood, and nerves, and heart. But
what did this old hero of Jesus Christ's kingdom
say about the affliction? Listen, *'I rejoice in
tribulation, for tribulation worketh," etc. He re-
joiced not in tribulation, itself, but amid tribula-
tion for the things tliat came forth from it.
Likewise, God, our Father does not expect us to
enjoy child-training. He is not displeased if we
find it hard to bear, and shrink under it. Nay,
He distinctly says, "it is grievous," and he only
asks us to endure it, not for itself, but for the
glorious ''afterward" which is to come forth from
it.

There are three warnings we need amid child-
training. In verse five, God admonishes us to : —
* * * *
"Despise Not."

Do not "esteem lightly" God's child-training.
Do not look down upon it. Above all, do not let

i6 LIPB TALKS.

your heart grow hard and bitter against God
because of it. Very needful is this warning to
all of us. How many have lost fellowship with
God, and have drifted into the dark places of
doubt, rebelliousness, and despair because they
have suffered their hearts to be embittered against
God for his seemingly strange dealings with them !
Ah! friend, shun that above everything else.
''Harden not your heart." Do not rise up in
mutiny of spirit against God. When you let that
serpent coil in your heart, it will sting your inner-
most soul to the death of peace, and rest, and joy
in your Lord. Guard yourself against that.
Again in the same verse, comes the warning : —

* * * *
''Faint Not!"

How great is the temptation at this point ! How
the soul sinks, the heart grows sick, and the faith
staggers under the keen trials and testings which
come into our lives in times of special bereave-
ment and suffering. "I cannot bear up any
longer; I am fainting under this providence
What shall I do? God tells me not to faint.
But what can one do when he is fainting?" What
do you do when you are about to faint physical-
ly? You cannot do anything. You cease from
your own doing. In your faintness, you fall upon
the shoulder of some strong loved one. You lean
hard. You rest. You lie still and trust, until
your fainting soul comes back to its own.' It is

CHASTENING. 17

so when we are tempted to faint under afflic-
tion. God's message to us is not "Be strong, and
of good courage," for he knows our strength and
courage have fled away. But it is that sweet
word : **Be still, and know that I am God." Hud-
son Taylor was so feeble in the closing months of
his life, that he wrote a dear friend, *'I am so
weak I cannot work; I cannot read my Bible; I
cannot even pray. I can only lie still in God's
arms like a little child, and trust." This won-
drous man of God with all his spiritual power
came to a place of physical suffering and weak-
ness where he could only lie still and trust. And
that is all God asks of you. His dear child, when
you grow faint in the fierce fires of affliction. Do
not try to he strong. Just he still, and knozu that
He is God and will sustain you, and bring you
through.

There is another warning we need in chasten-
ing, and it is this: —

* * * *
Question Not.

There are some questions the believer may ask
of his God. We may say ''what" to God. For
that is the question of service. "Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do?" It is fair for us to ask
that, for we have a right to know the particular
ministry He has for us from day to day. even as
had Paul. Again, we may say "where" to God.
For that is the question of guidance. It is but

i8 LIPB TALKS.

right that we should know the place of our serv-
ice; where He would have us walk, as we move
on in our daily journey with our Lord. Then,
too, we may say "when" to Him. For that is
the question of time. And it is well to know
His time for all things, that we neither run be-
fore Him in our zeal, nor lag behind Him in our
slothfulness. But there is one question no child
of His should ever put to God concerning God's
dealings with him in chastening. No man should
ever say '\i}hy" to God. For "why" is the ques-
tion of doubt. It is the assassin of faith. It
leads us to the brink of a dizzy cliff — the preci-
pice of rebellion against God. No Christian can
afford to say it. Our Lord never uttered it save
once, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsak-
en me?" That awful "Why"! It had all His
life been a stranger to His lips. And why had
it fallen now? Because of sin — not His, for He
had none. But yours and mine, and the world's,
which plunged Him, our sin-bearer, into the
black despair of the only hour of separation from
God He had ever known in all His eternal ex-
istence. And you and I are coming close to sin,
with its darkness, and broken fellowship, and its
rebellion against God when we began to say
"why" to Him. You do not like your little one
to say "why" to you, do you? Its mistrust
wounds your father-soul. Neither would God
have you say it to Him, for it brings like grief
to his father-heart.

CHASTENING. 19

There are some other things for us to remem-
ber too in chastening. The first is : —

Remember the love of God.

Last year there was found in an African mine
the most magnificent diamond in the world's his-
tory. It was presented to the king of England
to blaze in his crown of state. The king sent it
to Amsterdam to be cut. It was put in the hands
of an expert lapidary. And what do you sup-
pose he did with it? He took this gem of price-
less value. He cut a notch in it. Then he struck
it a hard blow with his instrument, and lo! the
superb jewel lay in his hand, cleft in twain.
What recklessness ! what wastefulness ! what
criminal carelessness ! Not so. For days and
weeks that blow had been studied and planned.
Drawings and models had been made of the gem.
Its quality, its defects, its lines of cleavage had
all been studied with minutest care. The man
to whom it was committed was one of the most
skilful lapidaries in the world. Do you say that
blow was a mistake? Nay. It was the climax
of the lapidary's skill. When he struck that blow,
he did the one thing which would bring that gem
to its most perfect shapeliness, radiance, and jew-
elled splendor. That blow which seemed to ruin
the superb precious stone was in fact its perfect
redemption. For from these two halves were
wrought the two magnificent gems which the

20 LIFE TALKS.

skilled eye of the lapidary saw hidden in the
rough, un-cut stone as it came from the mines.

So, sometimes, God lets a stinging blow fall
upon your life. The blood spurts. The nerves
wince. The soul cries out in an agony of won-
dering protest. The blow seems to you an ap-
palling mistake. But it is not, for you are the
most priceless jewel in the world to God. And
He is the most skilled lapidary in the universe.
Some day you are to blaze in the diadem of the
King. As you lie in his hand now He kiunvs
just how to deal with you. Not a blow will be
permitted to fall upon your shrinking soul but
that the love of God permits it, and works out
from it depths of blessing and spiritual enrich-
ment unseen, and unthought-of by you.

2fC ^ ^ ^

Remember the fathkrhood of God

A visitor at a school for the deaf and dumb
was writing questions on the blackboard for the
children. By and by he wrote this sentence,
''Why has God made me to hear and speak, and
made you deaf and dumb?" The awful sen-
tence fell upon the little ones like a fierce blow
in the face. They sat palsied before that dread-
ful ''why." And then a little girl arose. Her
lip was trembling. Her eyes were swimming
with tears. Straight to the board she walked,
and, picking up the crayon wrote with firm
hand these precious words : —

CHASTENING, 21

"Even so Father for so it seemed good in
Thy sight!" What a reply! It reaches up and
lays hold of an eternal truth upon which the
maturest believer as well as the youngest child
of God may alike unshakeably rest — the truth
that God is your Father. Do you mean that?
Do you really and fully believe that? When
you do, then your dove of faith will no longer
wander in weary unrest, but will settle down
forever in its eternal resting place of peace.
''Your Father r Why that takes in everything!
Because He is your Father, how could He fail,
or forget you ? Look into your own father heart
and mark the strength, the tenderness, the un-
speakableness of your love for that winsome lit-
tle one enshrined in your heart of hearts. Then
say to yourself, ''God's Father love for me in-
fmitely surpasses all this." Your Father! Against
that all doubts must at last dash themselves to
pieces as the sea-spray beats itself to nothingness
upon a rock-bound coast. Down upon that your
child-trained soul will find a final resting place
in untrembling trustfulness. Rear that up before
the devil's subtle, hideous, hissing "whv" and he
will stago-er back, the unmasked, baffled, beaten
traitor that in truth he is.

Give God a Chance,

''Prove me now.'' — Mai. 3 : 10.

In a great city telegraph office scores of instru-
ments were busily clicking away. Presently, in
the midst of the din and clatter, the door opened,
and in walked a young man — a stranger. He was
tall, and rather awkward, with a linen duster
reaching nearly to his heels. In response to his
request for employment the chief operator mo-
tioned him to a chair. By and by another instru-
ment began to click. The most important work
of the day was on hand. The press dispatches
were ready, at the distant city. And by his table
in that city sat one of the swiftest writers, and
most skilful operators in the service, waiting to
began his rapid sending. The chief motioned to
the tall young man to take his seat at the table at
which the press news was to be received. He
quietly did so. The other workers lifted their
heads from their instruments, to look askance at
the rustic stranger in his attempt to "take" the
fastest man on the line. They were watching for
him to fail. But he had no notion of doing so.
Answering the call he took up his pen and began
to write. And there for hour after hour he sat.
22

GIVE GOD A CHANCE. 23

Without a break, without a halt; writing a hand
Hke a copper-plate in its clearness and beauty, he
tossed off sheet after sheet of copy to the waiting
messenger boy, while all the office stared in as-
tonished admiration. When the work was fin-
ished, the position was his without any further
question. \Vhen asked his name, he replied —
Edison. It was the beginning of his world-wide
fame. All he wanted was — a chance. And when
he got it he did marvels.

And is not this the homely expression of the
real thought in the verse from ]\Ialachi, cited
above. "Bring ye all the tithes. . .Prove Me now
. . .if I will not open the windows of heaven."
What is God saying here but this? ''^ly child, I
still have windows in heaven. They are yet in
service. The bolts slide as easily as of old. The
hinges have not grown rusty. I would rather
fling them open, and pour forth, than keep them
shut and hold back. I opened them for Moses,
and the sea parted. I opened them for Joshua, —
and Jordan rolled back. I opened them for Gid-
eon, and the hosts fled. I will open them for
you, — if you will only let me. On this side of the
windows heaven is the same rich store-house as
of old. The fountains and streams still overflow.
The treasure rooms are still bursting with gifts.
The lack is not on My side. It is on yours. /
am waiting. / am ready. Prove I\Ie now. Ful-
fill the conditions, on your part. Bring in the
tithes. Give Me a chance.

24 LIFE TALKS. '^""^

And first, theti, let us

* * * *
Give God a chance, — hy trusting.

F'aith opens the soul to God. It is the channel
down which God's heavenly blessings flow to
usward. It is the bridge which leaps the chasm
between heaven and earth. It is the ladder over
which God's messengers of help journey to us
needy earthlings. It is Faith which gives God a
chance to work in your life and soul. Turning
away from God in un-faith is putting a plate-
glass between you and an electric current; it
shuts oflf the flow of life. It is stopping your ears
with cotton, so that no note of a song can float in
upon your soul. It is wearing a bandage over
your eyes, so that no glint of the beauty of dawn
or sunset can come to your blinded vision. The
life, the light, the song are there. But you shut
them out. You give them no chance.

A simple picture illustration comes to mind
here. It is that of a human hand. In the hand
is an empty bottle. The bottle is under a foun-
tain. The waters are flowing atop, at the sides,
all over the bottle. But there is not a drop inside.
Underneath is the legend : **Why is the bottle not
filled?" The reason is simple. There is a cork
in the bottle. It has no chance. Even so Faith
is the soul's in-take. Through it God's life comes
in. Love is the soul's outlet. Through it God's

GIVE GOD A CHANCE. 25

life pours forth. To clog either is to stay the
flow of life. You give God no chance.

Unsaved friend, why do you continue to live in
the shadow of death? Why has not the miracle
of the new birth been wrought in your soul ? Why
do you, every moment, stand in jeopardy of a
catastrophe which all the years of eternity can
never set right? Simply because you will not
fulfill God's simple conditions. You zcill not ac-
cept and trust Jesus Christ as the Saviour of your
soul. You will not give God a chance. Suppose
the delicate mechanism of your gold watch has a
breakage. You take it to the watchmaker and
ask if he can repair it. He says he can, if you
will but leave it in his hands for a few days. At
once you trust him with it. For you know he
can do nothing unless you give him a chance. Or
you want your portrait painted. You go to an
artist friend. He tells you he will do it. But he
says you must come daily to him, for so many sit-
tings. You straightway obey. For you know
he cannot paint your portrait unless you give hirrt
a chance. Or you go to a dock, and ask the cap-
tain of a steamship if he will land you on the
other side of the ocean. He says he will, if you
will buy a ticket, step aboard the boat, and trust
him to carry you over. This too you do. For you
know you can never cross the ocean unless you
trust yourself to the ship. You must needs give
it a chance. How strange then, that you will not
rive God the same chance in eternal matters which

26 LIFE TALKS.

you give to men in temporal ones ! There is a
breach in your soul of vastly more moment than
the breakage in your watch. God will mend it —
if you give Him a chance. There is a picture —
the image of Jesus Christ — to be painted upon
your inner being, — as upon every other life that
would enter heaven. God will paint it — if you
give him a chance. There is a journey out into
the unknown abyss of eternity, which no man can
ever take to save by God's way, and God's guid-
ance. God will pilot you all the way — if you give
Him a chance. Be as fair to God in matters of
eternity, as you are to men in the concerns of
time. Fulfil His simple conditions of salvation.
Give yourself to Him. Trust Him, in Christ. He
will surely save your soul — if you only give Him
a chance.

Give God a chance, — by praying.

There are many things too difficult for you to
do. But you do not hesitate to seek some one
more skilful and give him a chance to do for you.
You have a precious gem to re-set. You cannot
do it. But you are quick to give the expert jew-
eler a chance to do it for you. There is a danger-
ous mountain steep to climb. You do not know
how to find the pathway. But you give the moun-
tain guide a chance to lead you in it. There is a
deep ford to cross. You cannot risk it. But you

GIVB GOD A CHANCE. 27

give the hardy ferryman a chance to pilot you
across it.

It is not otherwise with you and God. There
are many things you cannot do. But God says:
"If ye ask I will do." There are burdens you
cannot bear. Give God a chance through prayer,
and He will bear them for you. There are prob-
lems too knotty for your solution. Give God ?
chance by prayer, and God will solve them for
you. There are barriers too high for you to over-
leap. Ask God. They are not too high for Him.
Somehow when there seems no other chance for
us, prayer gives God a chance. And behold He
does for us what we had forever despaired of
doing ourselves.

A Christian business friend was in sore straits.
A sudden demand had been made upon him for
a large sum of money. Every consideration of
business honor demanded its payment. Yet he
was helpless to meet it. The only possible way
out of the crisis seemed to be the sale of a piece
of real estate. But the market was discouragingly
dull. There was scarcely a buyer in it. In short
there was no human chance of selling it. So we
determined to give God a chance. Spreading the
whole matter before Him, we began to pray.
After two weeks of earnest supplication a man
came to ask our friend if his real estate was in
the market. In another week he came again and
asked the price. A little later he made our friend
an offer. The latter, however, deemed it too low.

28 LIPE TALKS.

So we prayed on, that God might work His per-
fect will in it all. At the end of six weeks of
prayer the sale was made, and our friend came to
us with a check for many thousands of dollars in
his hand. With tears in his eyes, he said: "It
seems to have come as directly from God as
though He Himself had handed it to me over the
counter of the bank." That was true. It was all
of God. We had simply given Him a chance.

* * * *

It takes God Time: to anszver prayer; give Him a
chance.

We often fail to give God a chance in this re-
spect. It takes time for God to paint a rose. It
takes time for God to grow an oak. It takes time
for God to make bread from a wheat field. He
takes the earth. He pulverizes. He softens. He
enriches. He wets with showers and dews. He
warms with life. He gives the blade, the stock,
the amber grain, and then at last the bread for
the hungry. All this takes time. Therefore we
sow, and till, and wait, and trust, until all God's
purpose has been wrought out. We give God a
chance in this matter of time. We need to learn
this same lesson in our prayer life. It takes God
time to answer prayer.

A Christian worker had reached the end of the
week, well wearied with service. The sunshine
and rippling river were luring him to an hour's
rowing. Boarding a passing car he was soon

GIVU GOD A CHANCE. 2f)

on the way to the river bank. As he neared it he
remembered that it was late in the season, and
there was a hkehhood of the boat-house being
closed. But the outing for tired nerves and
weary body seemed a clear need. So he lifted
his heart quietly in prayer that if it were the
Lord's will He might send along the caretaker of
the boat-house to furnish the boat. Reaching the
spot he found to his disappointment that the house
was closed. Turning to leave under the impulse
of the moment, the thought flashed in *'It has only
been a moment or two since you prayed the Lord
to send along the boatman, and now you are go-
ing away without even waiting long enough for
him to get here. Why don't you give God a
chance." So he sat down by the river bank to
wait. In ten minutes the boat-keeper came stroll-
ing along. The house was opened, the boat se-
cured, and the refreshing hour's outing enjoyed
to the full. With it came another simple lesson
in the prayer-life, that it takes God time to answer
prayer, and that we therefore need to give God
a chance.

Take this matter of conversion. You have an
unsaved loved one. You have prayed for him —
for months — for years. He is still outside the
kingdom. God has not answered your prayer,
you say. But perhaps you are at sea in your view
of conversion. Does God bring a soul into His
kingdom as you might lift a child over a hedge, or
hurl a stone across a stream ? Does man's choice

30 LIFE TALKS.

have no place in this ? It surely does. It matters
not by what theological side-path you approach
this matter of conversion. One thing is certain,
however God may move upon man's will He does
not supplant that will. Whatever may be the mys-
tery of God's choice, no soul ever comes into the
kingdom without his own choice.

Hence concerning the conversion of a resisting
soul remember this. God is strkdng with a human
zvilL But do you know what it is to move upon
a human will? This very loved one you have
warned. With him you have pleaded. With him
you have reasoned. Yet all these years that
strong will has stood out against you. Now, at
the last, you have given up in sheer despair the
attempt to move upon a human will. Do you not
realize then what it means for God to do it? God
may have heart-idols to overthrow. God may
have to foil chosen plans. God may suffer afflic-
tions to come. God must press in upon the man
engrossed in the temporal, a growing vision of
the eternal. God must needs cherish, woo, dis-
appoint, uplift, bereave, enrich, impoverish, — yea,
bring to bear a multitude of influences upon a re-
sisting will, ere it yields to Him. But to unstop
ears deaf to the voice of God — to open eyes blind
to the vision of God — to turn aside wandering feet
into the path of God — all this takes time. There-
fore— Give God a chance.

GIVE GOD A CHANCE. 31

Give God a chance, — by yielding.

God can do nothing with us if we do not yield —
He has no chance.

We recall a day of sight-seeing in the palaces
of Genoa. From room to room we had followed
the care-taker in his tour. Paintings, sculpture,
curios of all sorts had followed each other in
rapid train. Finally we entered a room seemingly
empty. Bare walls, floors, and tables alone greet-
ed us. Presently the guide led us across the
room to the wall at the farther side. There we
espied a niche in the wall. It was covered with a
glass case. Behind the case was a magnificent
violin, in perfect preservation. This, said the
guide, was Paganini's favorite violin ; the rich old
Cremona upon which he loved most of all to dis-
play his marvelous skill. We gazed intentlv upon
the superb instrument, with its warm, rich tints,
sinuous curves, and perfect model, listening mean-
while to the estimate of its almost priceless value.
And then we tried to imagine the wondrous
strains the touch of the .ereat master would bring
forth if he were there in that quiet palace chamber.
Then came the thought: Nay. But this could not
be. For it would not matter what rich melodies
were in the inner soul of the master. It would
not avail how eager he might be to pour them
forth in sweetest, tenderest strain through that
magnificent instrument. He could not possibly do
so. For it was locked up against him. It was an

32 LIFE TALKS.

unyielded instrument. It was like thousands of
lives which are pad-locked against God, not back
of a fragile, easily shattered glass case, but be-
hind the impenetrable armor plate of an unyielded
human will. It gave the Master no chance.

Friend, is this why your life seems barren and
fruitless? Is this why God does not seem to be
using that Hfe? Is it that, however willing. He
cannot use it because unyielded to Him ? For this
picture of an instrument is no fancy, but the very
one God employs in His Word. "Present your
members as instruments to God," He says. And
how can He use an un-presented instrument? The
very word "present" pictures the secret of your
trouble. It means "to place near the hand" of
one; to set at the hand of another as one might
set a tool or instrument. To be a surrendered
man, a yielded man, is simply to be God's handy
man. The carpenter is at work. Some of his
tools are hanging on the wall of his workshop.
Some are right at hand on his work -bench. When
he wants one quickly and urgently which will he
use? The one he can reach quickest — the one
"set at his hand." This is precisely where God
wants your life. Not hanging on the wall of self-
ishness, but yielded — reachable — usable. This is
what gives God a chance.

Moses, with his hesitation and stammering
tongue, sefemed but a weak instrument. But he
gave God a chance. And God made him the law-
giver and leader of His people. Gideon looked

GIVE GOD A CHANCE. 33

with fear and trembling upon the great work be-
fore him. Yet he gave God a chance. And God
routed a great and mighty host with his puny
lamps and pitcher. David was but a stripling
shepherd, shut up in obscurity. But he gave God
a chance. And God brought him to a throne. The
little lad with the loaves and fishes had but a
mite. But he gave God a chance. And the Mas-
ter brake, and brake the morsels until a famish-
ing multitude was fed before the wondering eyes
of the grateful boy. The man on the Damascus
road gave God a chance on that fateful day. And
God shook the world with him. Seven weary
fishermen peered through the morning gloaming
upon the form of one standing upon the shore.
The night was far spent. The day was at hand.
The hour for successful fishing was past. But
when the voice rang out over the waters: "Cast
the net on the right side of the ship," they yield-
ed to the Master. And He gave them such a
catch as they had never known in all their fisher
days — when they gave Him the chance.

It is not how much do you have, but how much
of yours does God have. It is not a question of
bemoaning what you have not, but of yielding
what you have. One talent yielded, is worth
more than ten simply possessed. Is your hand-
ful of grain in the hands of the sower? That bit
yielded, is worth more than a bin, boarded. The
nugget of gold, which has been minted and coin-
ed, and is purchasing hourly blessing as it passes

34 IIPB TALKS.

from hand to hand, is worth all the undug tons
of treasure which the earth conceals.

Reader, you have given pleasure a chance. Has
it paid ? You are giving ambition a chance. Does
it satisfy? You are giving money-getting a
chance. Is it for self or God? Have a care.
When life comes to an end is it going to be
ashes — emptiness — f ruitlessness ? What a pity!
Try God. Give Him a chance. What is your
life, anyhow? Where is it centered? On self or
God? Is it counting for eternity? Or only for
time? Sit down a while and think, not only
about your soul, but your life. Ask yourself not
necessarily what God's judgment will be, but
what your own honest verdict upon your life will
be if it goes on to the finish exactly as it is now.
Any Christian man who will do that honestly will
begin to live for God. He will see that an im-
mortal life which does not take into account God's
eternal plan for it, must be a failure.

Friend, when you come to the end where the
world will have shriveled to its true littleness,
and eternity loomed up to its real bigness ; when
the things which are seen are really found to be
temporal and the things which are unseen, eter-
nal ; when you are on the brink of stepping over
into the glory where God is all and in all; then
you will be glad, oh, so glad, that to-day, when
you finished this message, you laid it down and
decided that as for you and your life, from this
time forth you would

Give — God — a — chance.

The Blood-Covenant.

John 15: 13-15.— "Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his' friends. Ye
are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant
knoweth not what his lord doeth but I have called you
friends ; for all things that I have heard of My Father,
I have made known unto you."

"And Abraham was called the Friend of God." —
James 2 : 23.

In the days of Abraham, the relation of friend-
ship was entered into by a rite which was pecu-
liar and significant. Two men, desiring to come
into the place of friendship with each other, con-
stituted that friendship by this rite, which was
known as "The Blood-Covenant." The parties
came together with a common cup. Each man
pricked his arm with a sharp instrument, and
allowed a few drops of blood to flow into the
cup. Sometimes this commingled blood was also
mixed with water. Then each man drank from
the cup which contained the blood of each. When
they had so drunk, they were constituted friends
by this custom of their tribe. From this rite of
friendship sprang some beautiful and interesting
truths we desire to bring before you at this time
35

36 LIFE TALKS.

in our study of the Word of God. The first one
is this : —

* * ^H 5)^

Bach man laid down his own life; for the other.

As he cut the arm and allowed the blood to
trickle into the cup, he allowed his own life to
flow forth. For ''the blood is the Hfe." And
each man, in type, by that rite laid down his own
life on behalf of the other. "Now, Abraham
was called the friend of God." And we are told
in one place that, in entering into covenant rela-
tion with God, Abraham "cut" a covenant with
God, as though in relation to this interesting rite
among the tribes. Abraham was then called "The
friend of God."

The time came when God called upon Abra-
ham to stand the supreme test of friendship: —
to pour out his own life, if need be, for his blood-
covenant Friend, the God of Heaven. "Abra-
ham, take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac,
whom thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt-of-
fering." That was the supreme test. Abraham
was to give up his own life — yea, more than his
own life — for doubtless he would far rather have
laid down his own life than the life of Isaac.
You know the story. You recall the picture of
the father, with breaking heart, and the bright-
faced lad, going up the mountain path together:
— the angel of God staying the hand of the fa-
ther, and the marvellous grace and compassion of

THE BLOOD-COVENANT. yj

God which spared Abraham's only son. But the
time came when Abraham's seed needed some one
to die for them; to show His love for them even
unto death. And though He spared Abraham's
son, yet "God spared not His own Son, but freely
gave Him up for us all." Ah! how Jesus Christ,
our blood-covenant Friend, kept that blood-cov-
enant for you and me ! How He poured out His
life in suffering, even unto death! They ar-
raigned Him ; they tried Him ; they bore false
witness against Him ; they smote Him in the face ;
they scourged Him; they spat upon Him; they
mock-worshiped Him; they crucified Him; they
jeered at Him; they wagged their heads at Him;
they railed on Him; — but nothing could shake
His purpose to pour out His own life for us, His
blood-oovenant friends. We sing, "What a
Friend we have in Jesus." We sang it a mo-
ment ago, and who could doubt it ? No friend —
no one bound to us by the tenderest and most sa-
cred ties of this world's relationships, has ever
stood the test of friendship as Jesus Christ did
in the laying down of His life for us. But, dear
friends, can we take the other side of the truth
and say "Has Jesus Christ a friend in me? Have
I laid down my life at His feet?" Turn some-
time to 2 Cor. 5: 15, and there note the three-
fold purpose of His death. "He died for all,
that they which live should no longer live unto
themselves, but unto Him who died for them."
*'He died" — for us. "He died" that we might

3S LIFE TALKS.

live. "He died" that we who Hve — should no
longer live unto ourselves. Ah ! we have met the
purpose of Christ's death for us as sinners. We
have accepted it. We have beUeved and have
been brought from eternal death to eternal life.
But is it possible that any of us are baffling the
third great purpose of Jesus Christ's death — ^the
purpose that the believer, who has been delivered
from the guilt of sin, and unto eternal life, should
give his life to his blood-covenanted Friend!

Do I love the Lord Jesus Christ? That is a
real personal question. How may I know that I
love Him? "Greater love hath no man than this,
that a ma.Ti lay' down his life for his friends."
Ah ! I may speak with the tongue of men and of
angels, and yet I may not love my Lord. I may
have all wisdom and all knowledge, and have the
faith that moves mountains, and yet I may not
love my Lord. I may give my body to be burned,
and yet I may not love my Lord, supremely. But
there is one thing He says I may do which is the
supreme test of love to Him: — "Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
life" for Jesus Christ. We cannot lay it down
in atonement as He did. But we can lay it down
as a blessed, precious living sacrifice at His feet,
and thus be His friend. Again : —

THE BLOOD-COVENANT. 39

Bach man received the life of the other.

When each man took that cup, and drank of
the blood his friend had allowed to drip into it, he
received the life of his friend in type. For the
blood is the life. And as he drank the blood he
drank the life. "This cup is the new covenant
in My blood : drink ye all of it." I wonder if His
mind did not go back to that beautiful picture of
hundreds of years before, and if He did not mean
to make use of that to make so vivid the great
truth that he had poured out His blood m that
cup for them to drink, in type. I say, each man
received the life of the other. "Oh! but," you
say, "how could this be true of Jesus, our blood-
covenant Friend?" Listen: — "He took not on
Him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abra-
ham'' His blood-covenant friend. He took our
human nature, did He not? He might have been
a mighty angel. He might have gone back and
forth between heaven and earth, making occa-
sional visits to this sin-stained, dying world, in
all the radiance of His angelic presence. But,
oh! there was more in His divine heart of love
than that for us. He took not the nature of an-
gels, but the seed of Abraham. He became a
man that He might suffer with us; — that He
might be "a High Priest that could be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities;" that He
might be "tempted even as we are, yet apart from
sin ;" that He might enter into every condition of

40 LIPB TALKS.

our human life; — that He might be a God who
would actually partake of our human nature and
drink of our own human cup of sorrow, trial,
testing, weariness, and weeping. Yet He did even
more than that. Not only did He take our life, as
it zvere, but we have received His life! He took
our human nature up to God ; He brought God's
divine nature down to us. He, who was the Son
of God, became a man. We who are men be-
come, by faith in Him, the sons of God. How
wonderful is this trurt;h ! And how God seems to
want to emphasize this, next to the atonement of
Jesus Christ for sins: — that the life of Christ
comes into ^hi} and'inth me as^ we Believe in Jesus
Christ. Tufn^d Sebfe*^g,ch'api. '6, verses 13-17.
"For when God made pft)mise' td Abraham, since
He could swear by noii^ greater. He szvare by
Himself, saying, 'Surely blessing, I will bless
thee, and multiplying, I will multiply thee.' And
thus, having patiently endured, he obtained the
promise. For men swear by the greater ; and in
every dispute of theirs, the oath is final for con-
firmation. Wherein God, being minded to show
more abundantly unto the heirs of the promise
the immutability of His counsel, interposed with
an oath." What wonderful thing is this that God
condescends to swear shall be given to the heirs
of promise? God comes down to the sanctions
which men themselves use, and swears that the
blessing of Abraham, His blood-covenant friend,
shall come upon the heirs of promise. "Well,"

THE BLOOD-COVENANT. 41

we say, "but that must be some Jewish promise:
something for the natural seed of Abraham."
But now turn to Galatians (3: 14), and see how
wondrously God himself puts his finger upon
this promise, that we might never err or mis-
take its nature. He swears that the blessing of
Abraham shall come upon the heirs of the prom-
ise.

And who are these heirs? And what is this
promise? Let us read — ''That upon the Gentiles
might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ
Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the
Spirit through faith."

"The promise of the Spirit:" — that was the
blessing, that which was to come on the Gentiles ;
the Spirit of God ; the very life of God which was
to be received through Jesus Christ when men
believed in Him. The instant the Gospel is
preached at the formation of the young church,
and men begin to cry out — "^len and brethren,
what shall we do ?" the answer comes as we have
it in Acts 2 : 38. What God swore to happens.
''Repent and be baptized into the Lord Jesus
Christ and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost."
How plain ! — that the instant we believe in him,
the very life of God himself comes into you and
me ! I have no theory concerning the Holy Spirit.
I have no controversy with you concerning His
indwelling. But I do say that God swears that
every child of His that believes in the Lord Jesus
Christ shall receive the Spirit of God. Can we

42 UFB TALKS.

ever doubt that to which God has sworn ? If we
are His children, let us believe that the life of
God has as really come into us as the flesh and
blood life of our father and mother, which runs
in our veins. He Himself says, "This cup is the
new covenant in My blood" — the covenant of
grace — the promise of the Spirit — the promise of
the life of God in us, to enable us to keep and do
the will of God as we never could under the law.
When we drink that cup, then let us remember
that as surely as the glow, and the warmth, and
the life of that wine is present in our bodies, so
surely is the spiritual life of Jesus Christ dwell-
ing within us. God, with the whole universe from
which to choose a dwelling-place for Himself and
for His life, chose your body and mine ! We have
received the life of Christ. Again : —

9|C »fC SfC SfC

Bach man was ^ill^d with love: for the other.

When these friends drank of that blood of the
covenant, their hearts clave one to another, as
did the hearts of Jonathan and David ; and from
that time they loved one another as none others
loved in all that tribe. And as we think of our
blood-covenant Friend, what a Lover of our souls
was He! How tender was His love. We see
Him giving over His mother into the hands of the
beloved disciples, in the hour of His keenest
agony. How thoughtful was His love ! We see
Him providing for the hungry and fainting thou-

THE BLOOD-COVENANT. 43

sands by preparing the great dinner to meet their
needs. By the sea-shore in the morning twiHght,
as the wearied apostles come from their night's
toihng — we see Him making ready the breakfast
for them: — Jesus Christ, the Lord of the uni-
verse, making breakfast for His own! We see
the compassion of His love as it went out to the
waifs and the strays, the sin-stained and suffering.
We see the imchangeableness of His love, as we
are told that He loved His own "even unto the
end:" — unto the end of their coldness; — unto
the end of betrayal of Him; — unto the end of
denial of Him; — unto the end of all His own
agony He loved His own. We see this wondrous
love of Jesus Christ, and we too long to possess it.
What is the secret of love in our hearts ? Listen :
— each man received the life of the other. Come
out with me into the orchard where the fruit-
trees are. Do you see the patient husbandman at
work ? He is cultivating the trees ; he is fertiliz-
ing them; he is pruning out the dead wood and
superfluous branches. You stand there watching
him a while, and then you say, "But, my friend,
what about the fruit? I do not see any signs of
fruit." And he looks up with a knowing smile —
does this wise husbandman — and says, "I am
fertilizing for life; I am tilling for life; I am
pruning for life; I am cleansing for life. My
friend," and he smiles again, "when this tree is
filled with life, I will not have any concern about
fruit." Assuredly, the secret of fulness of love

44 UPB TALKS.

is simply the secret of fulness of life — the life of
His Spirit dwelling in us. It is life that brings
love. — *'The fruit of the Spirit is love." Our
dead, carnal natures do not love as God loves.
They love the world; they love the ambitions
of the world; they love the praises, and bau-
bles, and gewgaws of the world — your carnal
heart and mine. But the God-life, the Christ-
life in us, that is love — love of others ; that is the
love we desire to have; and that is the fruit of
the Spirit. Wherefore believe in the Spirit's in-
dwelling; yield to the Spirit; trust in the Spirit;
do all that will give the Spirit His way in your
life. And as the power and fulness of the Spirit
grow in your life, love will grow.

It is a fruit of the Spirit, we have said. But
do not forget that it is a fruit. That means, give
it time. It takes time for the bud to swell; it
takes time for the blossom to open ; it takes time
for the tiny fruit to form ; it takes time for it to
round out and develop ; it takes time for it to ma-
ture, until the beautiful blush is on it, and you
break it open and have the peach in all its ripe-
ness and lusciousness. It takes time. Be patient
with yourself as you wait, and trust, and come to
know more and more of the Spirit of God. Then
some day you will wake up to realize that there is
stealing into your heart a glow of love for the
lost, and love for others, and love for the fallen,
and love for Christ such as you never knew be-
fore. God's secret of love is simply His secret

THE BLOOD-COVENANT. 45

of life — the Christ Hfe — the Spirit of God within

us.

Bach friend did the will of the other.

"Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I com-
mand you/' Each friend stood ready to do that
which pleased the other friend, even to the laying
down of his life for that friend. Well, can this
be true of God, that He does our will ? Listen : —
"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you,
ye shall ask zchat ye zvill, and it shall he done
unto you." Behold the marvel apdjshe jessing
of the Pf3^'|J li/e| .X?-3d'Si wonderful fact that,
for the man or the woman who is abiding in Him,
He stands ready to do their ivill, through prayer.
Why should it not be so? When we ask God to
do anything according to His will, why should He
not do it? God is just as pleased to do that part
of His will for which yon ask, as any part of His
will in the universe. It is for the honor, and
glory, and interest of God to do your will, when
you are asking according to His will. Out there
on those great wheat farms in the western prai-
ries is not the owner ready to do the superintend-
ent's will as well as the superintendent to do the
owner's will ? If the harvesting machine gets out
of order, and the superintendent asks for its re-
pair, it is to the interest of the owner to repair it.
If the grain is mildewed and spoiling, and the su-
perintendent asks for hands to harvest it, it is to

46 LIFE TALKS.

the interest of the owner to answer his request.
So when we Hve in His will, and are striving to
do His will, it is to the interest of God's own king-
dom that that will be done, and it pleases God to
do it. God is just waiting for us to choose His
will. And when we choose to do His will, and
ask for anything according to it, He will do it. I
tell you, the greatest thought about prayer is not
that we are praying to God to do something for
us, but that we are praying to God to carry out
His will in this world of His. And when we pray
that, God stands ready to to carry it out. '*Ye
shall ask what ye will and it shall be done." When
we say, "Lord, I will to separate myself from sin ;
I will to come out from the emptiness and foolish-
ness of the world ; I will to walk closer with Thee ;
I will to know more of Thy power through com-
munion with Thee, through Thy Word, through
separation and service;" when we choose these
things which are within the will of God, He is
ready to do our will, because He is simply doing
His own will in us.

Finally, are we not the friends of Jesus in this
sense, that we do His will? May we speak of
this as the final test as He gives it here, "Ye are
My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.'*
That is the supreme test, dear friends ; — not how
I feel, but what I am doing. And Christ says, that
if you and I do His will, this is the test of friend-
ship with Him. And what is to do His will?
What is obedience ? It is an act, and it is a life.

THE BLOOD-COVENANT. 47

The act is the surrender to do His will all through
our life. Have we done that? The life is to
carry out the act in every detail of life and to
shape and fashion that life not according to our
own will but according to the will of God. And
if you and I take that step and become His blood-
covenant friends, then this Book of His becomes
the revelation of His will to us ; becomes the test
and guide of our life. If we are living to do His
will then it matters not how much suffering it
means ; it matters not what our friends may say ;
it matters not what the opinions of others may be.
We are to ask ourselves, ''What does the Word of
my Lord say about this decision, about this step,
about this indulgence in my life? Whatever it
says, by God's grace, I am going to do." That
is what friendship with Jesus means — an act by
which we give up our lives to do His will, a life
in which day by day we steadily, persistently,
with the guidance of this Book, fashion our lives
according to the will of God.

And will you notice as we close, what Christ
declares to be the result? The man, the woman,
who does this will — what does Christ say about
them? You remember His reply, when those in
the crowd that stood near to Jesus said to Him :
"Master, Thy mother and Thy brethren stand
without, desiring to speak to Thee," He stretched
forth His hand towards His disciples, and said:
"Who is My mother and who are My brethren?
Behold My mother and My brethren: for who-

48 UPB TALKS.

soever shall do the will of My Father who is in
heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and
mother." He chose the tenderest, the most beau-
tiful relationships on earth, and said, **The man
or the woman who has come into this blood-cov-
enant relationship with me — who has given up his
or her Hfe to do the will of my Father as I am
doing it here upon earth — that man, that woman,
is closer to me than my own flesh and blood kin-
dred." Ah, how blessed is the relationship He
invites you and me, His children, to enter into
with Him to-night ! How precious, how dear we
are to Him as His friends! And thus let us re-
member that the supreme test of love to our
Lord is not our emotional life, but simply this :
"Ye are My friends if ye do My will." It matters
not how prosaic our life is; it matters not how
matter-of-fact men and women we are ; it matters
not that we are not having the wonderful emo-
tional experiences other people may have; it
matters not that we are not naturally intense or
rapturous, but are quiet, even phlegmatic, in our
life characteristics and temperament; if we are
daily going about simply doing His will, Jesus
Christ says this is the high and supreme test of
friendship with Him. Yea, the test of love to
Him is to lay down our lives to do His will and
then — simply to do it.

The God-Planned Life.

"Created in Christ Jesus unto good works

zvhich God hath before ordained, that zue
should walk in them." Eph. 2 : 10.

"Created in Christ Jesus." That means every
child of God is a new creation in Christ Jesus.
'TJnto good works." And that means every such
child of God is created anew in Christ Jesus for
a life of service. "Which God hath before or-
dained." That means God has laid the plan for
this life of service in Christ Jesus, ages before
we came into existence. "That we should walk
in them." "Walk" is a practical word. And
that means God's great purpose of service for
the lives of His children is not a mere fancy, but
a practical reality, to be known and lived out in
our present, work-a-day life. Therefore all
through this great text runs the one supreme
thought that —

* * * *
God has a plan for every life in Christ Jesus.

What a wondrous truth is this! And yet how

reasonable a one. Shall the architect draw the

plans for his stately palace? Shall the artist

sketch the outlines of his masterpiece? Shall

49

so LIPB TALKS.

;the ship-builder lay clown the lines for his colos-
sal ship? And yet shall God have no plan for
the immortal soul which He brings into bjing
and puts "'in Christ Jesus?" Surely he has.
Yea, for every cloud that floats across the sum-
mer sky; for every blade of grass that points
its tiny spear heavenward ; for every dew-drop
that gleam^s in the morning sun; for every beam
of light that shoots across the limitless space
from sun to earth, God has a purpose and a plan.
How mAich more then, for you who are His own,
in Christ Jesus, does God have a perfect, before-
prepared life plan. And not only so, but —

^ ;ic ^ ^

God has a plan for your life zuhich no other man
can fulfd.

*'In all the ages of the ages there never has
been, and never will be a man, or woman just
like me. I am unique. I have no double." That
is true. No two leaves, no two jewels, no tw^o
stars, no two lives — alike. Ever}^ life is a fresh
thought from God to the world. There is no
man in all the world who can do your work as
well as you. And if you do not find, and enter
into Cod's purpose for your life, there will be
something missing from the glory that would
otherwise have been there. Every jewel gleams
with its own radiance. Every flower distils its
own fragrance. Every Christian has his own
rnrticular bit of Christ's radiance and Christ's

THE GOD-PLANNED LIFE. 5t

fragrance which God would pass through him to
others. Has God given you a particular person-
ality ? He has also created a particular circle of
individuals who can be reached arid touched by
that personality as by none other in the wide
world. xA.nd then he shapes and orders your
life so as to bring you into contact with that very
circle. Just a hair's breadth of shift in the focus
of the telescope, and some man sees a vision of
beauty which before had been all confused and
befogged. So, too, just that grain of individual
and personal variation in your life from every
other man's and some one sees Jesus Christ with
a clearness and beauty he would discern nowhere
else. What a privilege to have one's own Christ
in-dwelt personality, however humble! What a
joy to know that God will use it, as He uses
no other for certain individuals susceptible to it
as to no other! In you there is just a bit of
change in the angle of the jewel — and lo, some
man sees the light! In you there is just a trifle
of variation in the mingling of the spices — and,
behold, some one becomes conscious of the fra-
grance of Christ.

•^ if. ■:)>:. -Jf.

A man may fail to enter into God's plan for
his life.

Among the curiosities of a little fishing village
on the great lakes where we were summering

52 UPB TALKS.

was a pair of captive eagles. They had been
captured when but two weeks oM, and confined
in a large room-like cage. Year after year the
eaglets grew, iintil they were magnificent speci-
mens of their kind, stretching six feet from tip
to tip of wings. One summer when we came
back for our usual vacation the eagles were miss-
ing. Inquiring of the owner as to their disap-
pearance this story came to us. The owner had
left the village for a prolonged fishing trip out
in the lake. While he was absent some mischiev-
ous boys opened the door of the cage, and gave
the great birds their liberty. At once they en-
deavored to escape. But kept in captivity from
their earliest eaglet days, they had never learned
to fly. They seemed to realize that God had
meant them to be more than mere earthlings.
After all these weary years the instinct for the
sky and the heavens still smoldered in their
hearts. And most desperately did they strive to
exercise it. They floundered about upon the vil-
lage green. They struggled, and fell, and beat
their wings in piteous effort to rise into the airy
freedom of their God-appointed destiny. But
all in vain. One of them, essaying to fly across
a small stream, fell helpless into the water and
had to be rescued from drowning. The other,
after a succession of desperate and humiliating
failures managed to attain to the lower-most limb
of a nearby tree. Thence he was shot to death
by the hand of a cruel boy. His mate soon shared

THE GOD-PLANNED LIFE. 53

the same hapless fate. And the simple tragedy
of their hampered lives came to an end.

Often since has come to us the tragic life-lesson
of the imprisoned eagles. God had designed for
these kingly birds a noble inheritance of freedom.
It was theirs to pierce in royal flight the very eye
of the mid-day sun. It v^as theirs to nest in lofty
crags where never foot of man had trod. It was
theirs to breast with unwearying pinion the
storms and tempests of mid-heaven. A princely
heritage indeed was theirs. But the cruelty of
man had hopelessly shut them out from it. And
instead of the hmitless liberty planned for them
had come captivity, helplessness, humiliation, and
death. Even these birds of the air missed God's
great plan for their lives. Much more may the
sons of men.

Is not this the very thing of which Paul speaks
when he says : "Work out your salvation with
fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh
in you, both to will and to do of his good pleas-
ure." What are these inner voices which, if we
heed not, cease? What are these visions which,
if we follow not, fade? What are these yearnings
to be all for Christ which, if we embody not in
action, die? What are they but the living God
working in us to will and to do the lifework which
he has planned for us from all eternity? And it
is this which you are called upon to "work out."
Work it out in love. Work it out in daily, faith-
ful ministry. Work it out as God's works in you.

54 LIFE TALKS.

But more than that. You may miss it. You may
fall short of God's perfect plan for your life.
Therefore work it out with — fear and trembling!
Searching words are these. Words of warning,
words of tender admonition. That blessed life of
witnessing, serving, and fruit-bearing which God
has planned for you in Christ Jesus from all eter-
nity— work it out with trcmhling. Trembling — -
lest the god of this world blind you to the vision
of service which God is ever holding before you.
Trembling — lest the low standard of life in fel-
low-Christians about you lead you to drop 3^ours
to a like grovelling level. Trembling — lest some
little circle in the dark ends of the earth should
fail of the giving, the praying, or the going which
God has long since planned for you. Trembling
— lest the voices of worldly pleasure and ambition
dull and deafen your ears to the one voice v/hich
is ever whispering — follow thou Ale : follow thou
Me."

:ji ^; ^ >}t

One way of missing God's calling may be by
''choosing" our cmm calling.

Every day men talk of ''choosing" a calling.
But is not the phrase a sheer mJsnomer? For
how can a man "choose" a "calling"? If a man
is called lie does not choose. It is the one who
calls who does the choosing. "Ye have not
chosen Me, but / have chosen you and ordained
you that ye should go and bear fruit," says our

111b L,UL)-l'LA.\.\UlJ Lll'l:. 55

Lord. Men act as though God threw down be-
fore them an assortment of plans from which
they might choose what pleases them, even as
a shop-keeper tosses out a dozen skeins of silk to
a lady buyer from which she might select that
which strikes her fancy. But it is not true. It
is God's to choose. It is ours simply to ascer-
tain and obey. For next in its eternal moment to
the salvation of the soul is the guidance of the
life of a child of God. And God claims both as
His supreme prerogative. The man who trusts
God with one, but wrests from Him the other, is
making a fatal mistake. Would we were taught
this ere our unskilled hand had time to mar the
plan! In default of such teaching let us con-
fess with humbled hearts the mistakes we have
made here, in the frailty of our mere human
judgment. Young friend are you standing in that
trying place where men are pressing you to
"choose" a calling? Are you about to cast the
die of a self -chosen life work? Do not cast it.
Do not try to choose. Does not the text say we
are "created in Christ unto good works?" If
the plan is in Christ how will you find it unless
you go to Christ? Therefore go to God simply,
trustfully, prayerfully and ask Him to show you
what He has chosen for you from all eternity.
And as you walk in the daily light which He
sheds upon your path He will surely lead you
into His appointed life-plan. So shall vou be
saved the sorrow, disappointment, and failure

S6 LIFB TALKS.

which follow in the Vv^ake of him who "chooses"
his own path, and, all too late, comes to himself
to find out that it pays to trust God in this great
concern of his life, even as in all others.

Therefore we must needs admonish one anoth-
er that a man may miss God's plan for his life.
He may miss it by his own blindness, wilfulness,
disobedience, or self-choosing. But we pass on
now to the more blessed truth, that —

Every child of God can find, and enter into
God's plan for his life.

You remember the story of the engineer of the
Brooklyn bridge. During its building he was in-
jured. For many long months he was shut up
in his room. His gifted wife shared his toils, and
carried his plans to the workmen. At last the
great bridge was completed. Then the invalid
architect asked to see it. They put him upon
a cot, and carried him to the bridge. They placed
him where he could see the magnificent structure
in all its beauty. There he lay, in his helpless-
ness, intently scanning the work of his genius. He
marked the great cables, the massive piers, the
mighty anchorages which fettered it to the earth.
His critical eye ran over every beam, every girder,
every chord, every rod. He noted every detail
carried out precisely as he had dreamed it in his
dreams, and wrought it out in his plans and speci-
fications. And then as the joy of achievement

THU GOD-PLANNED LIFE. 57

filled his soul, as he saw and realized that it was
finished exactly as he had designed it; in an ec-
stasy of delight he cried out: "It's just like the
plan; it's just like the plan!"

Some day we shall stand in the glory and look-
ing up into His face, cry out: "O God I thank
Thee that thou, did^-t turn me aside from my
wilful and perverse way, to Thy loving and per-
fect one. I thank Thee that Thou didst ever lead
me to yield my humble life to Thee. I thank Thee
that as I day by day, walked the simple pathway
of service. Thou didst let me gather up one by one
the golden threads of Thy great purpose for my
life. I thank Thee, as, like a tiny trail creeping its
way up some great mountain side, that pathway
of life has gone on in darkness and light, storm
and shadow, weakness and tears, failures and fal-
terings. Thou hast at last brought me to its des-
tined end. And now that I see my finished life,
no longer 'through a glass darkly' but in the face
to face splendor of Thine own glory, I thank
Thee, O God, I thank Thee that, it's just like the
plan; it's just like the plan!"

Then, too, while we do need to walk carefully
and earnestly that we miss not God's great will
for us, yet let us not be anxious lest, because
we are so human, so frail, so fallible, we may
make some mistakes in the details and specifica-
tions of that plan. For we will do well to re-
member this. God has a beautiful way of over-
ruling mistakes when the heart is right with

S8 LWn TALKS.

Him. That is the supreme essential. The one
attitude of ours which can mar his purpose of
love for our lives is the refusal to yield that life
and will to His own great will of love for it. But
vv^hen that life is honestly yielded, then the mis-
takes in the pathway which spring from our own
human infirmities and fallibleness will be sweetly
and blessedly corrected by God, as we move along
that path. It is like guiding a ship. Our trem-
bling hand upon the wheel may cause trifling
wanderings from her course. But they seem
greater to us than they are in reality. And if we
but hold our craft steadily to the pole-star of
God's will, as best we know it, she will reach her
destined port Vv'ith certainty, notwithstanding the
sw^ervings that have befallen her in the progress
of her voyage.

>i< ^: * =K

But now we come face to face v/ith a question
of supreme importance. And that is this : "How
shall I ascertain God's plan for my life? How
shall I be safe-guarded from error? How shall
I discern the guidance of God from the mis-
guidance of my own fleshly desires and ambi-
tions? How shall I find the path in which He
is calhng me to walk? We answer, first:

Believe.

The trouble with most of us is that we do not
believe God has such a life-plan for us. We

TUB GOD-PLANNBD LIFE. 59

take our own way, we lay our own plans, we
choose our own profession, we decide upon our
own business without taking God into account at
all. "According to our faith is it unto us." And
if we have no faith in God's word in this regard,
what else can we expect but to miss God's way
for our lives, and only come back to it after long
and costly wanderings from His blessed, chosen
pathway for us ? Ephesians 2 : lO, is as surely
inspired as Ephesians 2 : 8. The promise of a life-
plan is as explicit in the one, as the promise of
salvation is in the other. Brood over this Ephe-
sian verse. Is it plain ? Is it God's word ? Does
it not say clearly that God has a life-plan for
you in Christ Jesus? Then settle down upon it.
Believe it with all your whole soul. Do not be
shaken from it. Again —

Pray .

Dr. Henry Foster, founder of the Clifton
Springs sanitarium, was a man of marvelous
power with God. A man, too, of great insight
into the mind and ways of God in the matter of
guidance in the affairs of life. What was the
secret of that wondrous power and wisdom?
Visitors were wont to ask this question of one
of the older physicians on the staff of that great
institution. And this was his response. He took
the visitor by the arm. He led him up-stairs to
the door of Dr. Foster's office. He led him into

6o LIFE TALKS.

this little chamber, across the corner of the room.
There, kneehng, he lifted up the border of a rug
and shovN^ed to the visitor two ragged holes in the
carpet, worn there by the knees of God's saint
in his life of prayer. "That, sir, was the secret
of Henry Foster's power and wisdom in the things
of God and men."

Friend, when your bed-room carpet begins to
wear out after that fashion, the man who lives in
that room need not have any fear about missing
God's life plan. For that is the open secret of wis-
dom, and guidance in the life of every man who
knows anything about walking with God. "Does
any man lack wisdom? Let him ask of God."
Are you one of the men who lack wisdom concern-
ing God's plan for their lives? Then ask of God.
Pray! Pray trustfully, pray steadily, pray ex-
pectantly, and God will certainly guide you into
that blessed place where you will be as sure you
are in His chosen pathway, as you are of your

salvation.

* ^ * *

Will

Will what? Will to do God's will for your
life, instead of your own. Do not launch out
upon the sea of life headed for a port of your
own choosing, guided by a chart of your own
draughting, driven by the power of your own
selfish pleasures or ambitions. Come to God.
Yield your life to Him by one act of trustful,

7HE GOD-PLANXliD Lll'li. 6i

irrevocable surrender. And then begin to choose
and to do His will for your life instead of your
own. So shall you come steadily to know and see
God's will for that life. Our Lord Jesus clearly
says this : "If any man will to do my will he shall
know!' Without a shadow of doubt, we will
begin to know God's will, as soon as we begin to
choose His will for our lives instead of our own.

Thus the spiritual field-glasses through which
we come to see God's will for our lives are dou-
ble-barreled. Side by side are two lenses. The
one— "I trust." The other— "I will." When a
man can hold both of these to his eyes he will
see God's will with unclouded clearness. But
suppose a man says to God "I doubt." Then a
veil falls over that lens of faith. And suppose
he says, *'I will not." Then the veil falls over
the other, the lens of the will, of choice. Straight-
way that man's spiritual vision is in eclipse. He
walks in a darkness of his own making, springing
from his own un faith and self-will, yet the source
and cause of which he, in his blindness, wholly
fails to perceive.

Friend, are you walking in such darkness?
Do you say, "there is such a veil between you and
the will of God for your Hfe? Listen. Begin to
believe in God's plan for your life. That veil
will become translucent. Begin to unll to do
God's will. That veil will become transparent.
Begin day by day, actually to do God's will.
That veil will vanish ! And when it is gone, and

62 LIFB TALKS.

you are walking in the full light of God's will
for your life you will see that it was self-will
alone which shut out the clear vision of God's
will. For no man can see the will of God save
through these two crystal lenses — the trustful
heart, and the yielded will.

Does some one say at this point : *'But suppose
I have given my life to God to enter into His
will for it. What change shall I make in it^
Shall I seek a nev/ environment, a new sphere?
What shall I do ? We answer —

^ -^ -^ ^
Stay zi/here you are, and do the next thing.

Talk God's plan, and consecration to it, to
Christian men and straightway many of them
think you mean them. to give up their business
and head at once for the pulpit or the foreign
missionary field. To come into God's life-plan
is to go into some other placey as they view it.
But there never was a greater mistake. Conse-
cration is not necessarily dis-\oc2Ltion. Not by
any means. God's plan for a man's life does
not of necessity lift him out from his present
realm of life and surroundings. It is not a new
sphere God is seeking. It is a new man in the
present sphere! It is not transference. It is
transformation. The trouble is not usually with
the place. It is with the man in the place. And
when a man consecrates his life to God to find

and enter into God's perfect plan for that life,
God will usually keep him riglu where he is, but
living for God and His kingdom instead of liv-
ing for self. So, until God shows you differently,
stay where you are, and live for God.

// God zi'oiifs you clscivhcrc He itnll lead you
there: be sure to follow.

We have seen that consecration is not neces-
sarily dis-location. Yet it may be. That God
usually keeps a man where he is, when he
yields his life to Him. Yet viot ahvays. God
may lift you clear out from the sphere in which
you are moving. God may completely change
your environment, as well as cliange you. God
may take you out of 3'Our business or pro-
fession, and send you to the uttermost parts
of the earth as a chosen messenger of His.
**But how will this come about," do you say?
As you do the next tiling. For God's plan
for your life will not burst from the heavens in
one splendid panoramic vision of his purpose for
it. Rather it comes day by day to the man who
faithfully does the thing next at hand. God's
searchlight falls upon only one bend in the river
at a time. Round that and you will have light
upon the next. The golden chain of God's great
purpose for your life and mine is woven of the
single links which we lay hold of, one at a time,
along the pathway of daily opportunity. By and

64 UFB TALKS.

by, when we have gathered enough Hnks, the
chain begins to appear. The man who faithfully
picks up the links need never fear about missing
the chain. Therefore do the next thing. As you
do it then this thread of daily service becomes
in God's hands, like the clew to a maze. By it
God leads you on and on in your pathway until
you are out from all the labyrinth of darkness
and uncertainty, into the clear shining of His
will for your life. Therefore do the next thing
patiently, faithfully, lovingly. Teach the class,
visit the sick, comfort the sorrowing, preach the
Word, use the tract and leaflet, witness for Him
just where you are. And as you thus serve if
God wants you elsewhere he will surely lead you
there. Only do you he sure to follozu. And thus
following some of us will land in China, India,
Africa. And some of us will abide just where
we are. But all of us will be where He wants
us. And that is, in the plan.

"Ah," says some one, "this is all very well for
the young, and the strong who have all of life
before them. But it is too late for me. My
life has been full of blunders and failures. It
is only after years of wandering that I have come
to Christ. There is naught left for me but the
memory of mistakes, and the fragments of a
vanished and broken life." Listen, friend, to this
truth, as we part to-night:

THE GOD-PLANNED LIFE. 65

God is the only one who can take a seemingly

shattered life and make a beautiful life

from the fragments.

jHave you ever heard this story? In a cer-
tain old town was a great cathedral. And in
that cathedral was a wondrous stained glass
window. Its fame had gone abroad over the
land. From miles around people pilgrimaged to
gaze upon the splendor of this masterpiece of art.
One day there came a great storm. The vio-
lence of the tempest forced in the window, and it
crashed to the marble floor, shattered into a hun-
dred pieces. Great was the grief of the people
at the catastrophe which had suddenly bereft the
town of its proudest work of art. They gathered
up the fragments, huddled them in a box, and
carried them to the cellar of the church. One
day there came along a stranger, and craved per-
mission to see the beautiful window. They told
him of its fate. He asked what they had done
with the fragments. And they took him to the
vault and showed him the broken morsels of
glass. "Would you mind giving these to me?"
said the stranger. **Take them along." was the
reply, "they are no longer of any use to us."
And the visitor carefully lifted the box and car-
ried it away in his arms. Weeks passed by ; then
one day there came an invitation to the custo-
dians of the cathedral. It was from a famous
artist, noted for his master-skill in glass-craft.

66 LIFE TALKS.

It summoned them to his study to inspect a
stained glass window, the work of his genius.
Ushering them into his studio he stood them
before a great veil of canvass. At the touch of
his hand upon a cord the canvass dropped. And
there before their astonished gaze shone a stained
glass window surpassing in beauty all their eyes
had ever beheld. As they gazed entranced upon
its rich tints, wondrous pattern, and cunning
workmanship, the artist turned and said: ''This
window I have wrought from the fragments of
your shattered one, and it is nov/ ready to be re-
placed." Once more a great window shed its
beauteous light into the dim aisles of the old
cathedral. But the splendor of the new far sur-
passed the glory of the old, and the fame of its
strange fashioning filled the land.

Reader, do you say that your plans have been
crushed? Thank God and take heart. Have
you not long since learned that the best place
for many of your plans is the trash pile? And
that often you must fling them there before your
blinded eyes can see God's own, better plan for
your life? And how is it with your life? Has
sin blighted it? Have the mistakes of early
years seemingly wrecked it? Have joy and
sweetness vanished from it? Does there seem
nought left for you but to walk its weary tread-
mill until its days of darkness and drudgery shall
end? Then know this. Jesus Christ is a match-
less life-mender. Try Him. He will take that

THli GOD-PLANNED LIFE. 67

seemingly shattered life and fashion a far more
beautiful one from its fragments than you your-
self could ever have wrought from the whole.
In Him your weary soul shall find its longed-for
rest. And the fragments that remain of God's
heritage of life to you shall mean in gladsome
days to come, more than all the vanished years
that are crooning their sad lament in your inner-
most soul to-night.

Why do I drift on a pathless sea,
With neither compass, nor star, nor chart,
When, as I drift, God's own plan for me,
Waits at the door of my slow-trusting heart?

Down from the heavens it drops^ like a scroll,
Each day a bit will my Lord unroll,
Each day a mite of the veil will uplift ;
Why should I stray? Why falter and drift?

Drifting — when God'^ at the helm to steer ;
Drifting — when God lays the course so clear :
Drifting — when straight into port I might sail ;
Drifting — when heaven lies just within hail.

Help me, my God, in the plan to believe ;

Help me my fragment each day to receive.

Oh, that my will may with Thine have no strife!

For the God-yielded will finds the God-planned life.

Believing is Seeing.

''Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst be-
lieve, thou shouldst see the glory of God?" (Jno.
11:40.)

The world says seeing is believing. Jesus
Christ says believing is seeing. The world's
maxim is familiar enough. The man who sees
believes. We come into knowledge through the
channel of vision. We know the sky, the stars,
the clouds, the sea, because we see them with our
very eyes. Yet just as real, and quite as sim-
ple, is the truth that the man who believes shall
see. Faith ever issues into vision. The man
who trusts shall know. The believer becomes a
seer. And note first here, that —

The faith which takes God's word shall see.

We remember one year in our boyhood when
the Christmas tide had come. Some one must
needs play Santa Claus for the children, and the
lot fell upon us. Our stripling figure was filled
out to the proper Santa Claus rotundness by a
convenient cushion. Our pockets were stuffed
to the full with the various giftj of love. And
we went about the ministry of distribution.
68

BELIEVING IS SEEING. 69

From one to another the packets were passed
until, as we thought, all had been parcelled out.
Then came a request from one of the family
circle: "Put your hand in your right pocket.
There is something there for you." But we
shook our head skeptically. Did not we know
all the gifts that had been stowed in those pock-
ets? And did not we know there was nothing
else there? But again came the word of re-
quest. And still we shook our head in decided
negative. At last more urgently, ''Well, put your
hand in the pocket, and try. Believe ana you
will see." And then, to satisfy a loved one, the
hand was slipped into the designated pocket.
And, lo, out came a parcel, marked with our
own name. Within was a beautiful gold watch,
the gift of a loving father to his boy. It had
been slipped into the pocket all unknown to us.
If we had not believed we never would have seen.
But when we believed we saw. When we be-
lieved— came realization. When we believed —
came the joy of possession.

Unsaved friend, it is right here that you are
making a fatal mistake, a mistake which will
work your eternal undoing. You say you will
not believe until you see. You must have some
experience of Christ before you will believe in
Christ. But know this. You will have a definite
experience of Christ just as soon as you exer-
cise a definite faith in Christ. And you will
never have it before. When vou believe the

70 LIFU TALKS.

light will come. When you believe the peace,

the joy, the assurance will come. Like Paul you

will "know Vv^hom you have believed." But that

means you will never know until you believe.

Believing will surely bring you to seeing. But

all the seeing in tJie zvorld zvill never bring you

to believing. Have a definite transaction zvith

Jesus Christ. Definitely accept Him as your

Saviour. Definitely confess Him before men as

such. And as surely as you do this you will

definitely know the salvation of God in Christ,

Believe and you shall see.

* * * *

The faith which prays shall see.

You have been praying for showers of bless-
ing, and not even a drop has fallen. You have
been praying for some barrier to melt away, and
it seems to have grown even greater. You have
been crying to God for a flood of light upon your
darkened path, and not a single gleam has yet
shone. Do not lose heart. Do not faint by the
way. For the faith which prays shall see. Peti-
tion shall end in vision. The cry of intercession
shall give place to the song of thanksgiving.

A young man left a New England city to go
as a missionary. Time passed. One night his
pastor in the homeland was awakened in the
dead of night beset with the fear that his young
parishioner was in peril. A great burden of
prayer was rolled upon him. He arose and gave

BELIEVING IS SEEING. 71

himself for hours to earnest intercession for the
safety of his friend. At that very time this was
happening in the heart of Africa: The mission-
ary, accompanied by a native, had started out
to hunt. As they journeyed they ran upon two
Hons and a lioness. The missionary fired, kill-
ing one of the lions, and wounding the other.
The lioness seemingly fled. In fact she had only
hidden in the jungle. The missionary now ad-
vanced and fired again upon the wounded lion.
The rifle had scarcely cracked when the great
brute lioness leaped upon him from her ambush.
With one blow she struck him to the ground.
In an instant her teeth were sunk in his arm
and her claws tearing fiercely at his shoulder.
He cried out to the native to shoot, but the latter
could not, as the missionary was between him
and the lioness. In his panic, however, the na-
tive fired his rifle in the air. At once the lioness
looked up. She dropped the missionary from
her jaw\s. He rolled over into the bottom of a
shallow ditch. And then instead of leaping upon
him and finishing her work, the lioness turned
and trotted into the jungle. The bleeding mis-
sionary was helped into camp. There, after six
weeks, he recovered completely from an experi-
ence which it is given to but few men to pass
through. God had indeed "stopped the mouths
of lions" for him. The tidings of his wonderful
escape went back home to his faithful pastor.
And he who had prayed now saw. He saw the

72 LIFE TALKS.

peril which had menaced his friend. He saw
why God had aroused him at midnight to pray.
He saw the miraculous deliverance which had
come to pass. Because he prayed, and prayed in
faith, he saw the glory of God in wondrous an-
swer. And so may you — if you pray likewise.

Abraham prayed and saw God meet his peti-
tion again and again for wicked Sodom and
Gomorrah. Moses prayed and saw God answer
for disobedient Israel. Hezekiah prayed and saw
the utter rout of the Syrian host. Jesus prayed
and the wondering people saw Lazarus break
forth from the gloom of the grave. The church
prayed and Peter saw the glory of the Lord and
the opening gates of prison cell and ward.

Wherefore though no man's — hand — cloud of
promise has yet risen upon your horizon — pray,
and you shall see. Though as yet no drops from
the coming down-pour fall upon your upturned
face of intercession — pray and you shall see.
Though the granite barrier against which you
are hurling your prayer of faith has not budged
one hair's breadth — pray, and you shall see.
Though the stubborn heart fot which you cry
unto God in the dark hours of the night does not
seem to abate one atom of its hardness — pray,,
and you shall see. For the faith which prays,
and prays, and prays, shall surely see. The
prayer which is in the will of God shall surely
see the glory of God.

BnunviNG IS SIIBING. n

The faith zi'hich yields shall see.

God is not satisfied with taking your si:irit
into heaven. He wants to use your Hfe here
upon earth. And so you have come to another
step of faith — the faith which yields. You have
come face to face with a decision which, ne> t
to acceptance of Christ as your Saviour, is the
most momentous a man can ever make — the de-
cision to consecrate your Hfe to God. And you
shrink back. You are sore afraid. You do no!
see all that consecration means. You do not see
how God can make use of your modest talents.
You do not see how He can adjust your strait-
ened and hedged pathway to a life of devotion to
His will. To all this God has but one answer.
Believe and you shall see. For in your life you
will see the glory of God whenever, as best you
know, you place that life in the will of God.

Here is a plain strip of canvass. Before it
stands the master painter. He says, "Do you
see that golden sunset? Trust yourself to me
and I will paint its glory in your face." And
the canvass says, "I am coarse in texture. I am
'^cant in size. I do not see how you can fill me
with the glory of that sunset sky." And the
master says, "Yield, and you shall see."

Here is a black mass of ore, fresh-dug from
ilie grime of the earth. It is soiled, stained, and
!^iis-shapen. The master workman takes it in
h.is hand. "There is naught in me for you,"

74 UFB TALKS.

says the ore. And the goldsmith says, *'I will
take you, and melt you, and mold, and carve,
and chase you, until there shall be wrought from
your blackness a precious cup of gold fit to
grace the feast-day of a king." "Yield and you
shall see."

And here is a plain, every-day life — your life,
my friend. And the Master stands before it,
and speaks, "Give me your life. It matters not
how humble it is, give it to me. And I will chas-
ten it, and enrich it, and anoint it with my Spirit,
and glorify My Father in heaven through it.'*
And you are saying, ''I do not see all that con-
secration means. I do not ste any niche of
Christian service into which I can fit." And to
all this the Master of our lives has still the same
answer, "Yield — and you shall see"

A man stepped up to us one day at the cl«se
of a meeting, and said, "I want to tell you a
story. Years ago I was teaching a class of boys
in a certain city. There were eight boys in the
class. It was in the days before the lesson helps
were so plentiful as now, and we were confined to
the use of the Bible alone. There was but
one Bible for the whole class. This was passed
from hand to hand in due order. I noticed es-
pecially how the second boy in the class acted
when the book reached him in turn. He fum-
bled at the leaves. He hesitated and halted at
words of but ordinary difficulty. The big words
he skipped entirely. Yet he was most faithful

BELIBVIXG IS SEEING. 75

and persistent in it all. My brother," said the
speaker, ''that boy was Dwight L. Moody."

Dwight Moody might have deemed his talents
too modest for God to use. He might have
thought it useless to yield them to Him. He
might have decided to lay them up in the nap-
kin. But he did nothing of the kind. He yield-
ed his all to God, as it was. He trusted. He
followed on. And the world has not yet ceased
to see the glory of God in his wondrous life.

And so shall it be with you. Never mind how
feeble your efforts, how frequent your failures.
Never mind that you cannot see how or where
God can use so humble a life as yours. Never
mind that it seems so fettered by circumstances
that God can surely never free it and use it.
That is for Him, not for you. Keep off God's
ground. It is for you simply to yield. God will
take care of the rest. And as you believe enough
to yield you \yill surely see the glory of God.

«fC ^ 'jC TfC

The faith which zvaits shall see.

The helpless must wait. The patient do wait.
But the strong, and the eager — how hard it is
for them to wait! To wait for the salvation of
a soul when your heart is breaking with the
suspense; to wait for the consecration of a life
while you see the world laying waste its precious-
ness ; to wait for laborers to be thrust forth while
the harvest is whitening in death ; to wait for

^7(y IIPB TALKS.

God to bring things to pass and see Satan's rav*
ages while you wait ; such waiting takes a mighty
faith. And yet faith which waits shall surely
see. The glory of God comes to the waiting one.

You have been taking a long and wearisome
railroad journey. For days you have been trav-
eling through the dust and heat. You are near-
ing home, and brook with impatience each delay.
At midnight you are awakened by the slowing of
your train. It bumps, jars, and creaks, and finally
comes to a standstill. You wait, and wait.
You peer out into the gloom with your face
pressed against the car window. Five, ten, twen-
ty minutes pass. Still all is quiet, with no sign
of a move. You drum at the window pane. You
turn wearily in your berth. You wonder when
the weary wait will end. Presently there is a
sound in the distance. The rattle and clatter
come nearer. Then there is a rush, a roar, the
red glare of a great fiery eye and the monster
engine and its trail of coaches sweeps by you in
an instant and is swallawed up in the encircling
darkness. You have waited long. Now you see.
You see in vision the awful death which would
have come to you had you gone on. You see
the wise forethought which kept you waiting on
that track. It was a passing siding and the one
safe thing to do was to wait. Had you gone on
it would have been to the wreckage and death of
a collision.

And so perchance it is with yourself. Is your

BELIEVING IS SEEING. 77

heart in the mission field and your body at home?
Are you eager for the Master's service, yet hin-
dered on every side? Is the horizon of Hfe so
narrowed by circumstances as to become ahnost
unbearable? Yet God's waiting time is best for
you. Wait — and you will see your barriers razed.
Wait — and you will see your circumstances
change. Wait — and you will see God bringing
things to pass beyond all your dreams. Wait and
you shall see. For ''He zvorketh for him tliat
waits for Him."

* * * *

The faith which does not understand — shall see.

Mary and Martha could not understand what
their Lord was doing. Both of them said to
Him, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother
had not died." Back of it all we seem to read
their thought, "Lord, we do not understand why
you have stayed away so long. We do not un-
derstand how you could let death come to the
man whom you loved. We do not understand
how you could let sorrow and suffering ravage
our lives when your presence might have stayed
it all. Why did you not come? It is too late
now. For already he has been dead these four
days." And to it all Jesus had but one great
truth. "You may not understand ; but I tell you
if you believe, you will see."

Abraham could not understand why God
should ask the sacrifice of his bov. But he trust-

78 LIl^B TALKS.

ed. And he saw the glory of God in his restora-
tion to his love. Moses could not understand
why God should keep him forty years in the
wilderness. But he trusted. And he saw when
God called him to lead forth Israel from bond-
age. Joseph could not understand the cruelty of
his brethren, the false witness of a perfidious wo-
man, and the long years of an unjust impris-
onment. But he trusted. And he saiv at last
the glory of God in it all. Jacob could not under-
stand the strange providence which permitted
that same Joseph to be torn from his father's
love. But he too sazv the glory of God when
he looked into the face of that same Joseph as
the viceroy of a great king, and the preserver of
his own life and the lives of a grt^at nation.

And so perhaps it is in your life. You say,
"1 do not understand why God let my dear one
be taken. I do not understand why affliction
has been permitted to smite me. I do not un-
derstand the devious paths by which God is lead-
ing me. I do not understand why plans and pur-
poses that seemed good to my eyes should be
baffled. I do not understand why blessings I
so much need are so long delayed, and some-
times never come at all. There are so many
things in God's dealings with me I cannot un-
derstand." Friend, you do not have to under-
stand all God's way with you. God does not
expect you to understand them. You do not ex-
pect your child to understand, only believe. And

BliUEVIKG IS SEEING. 79

some day you will see the glory of God in the
things you do not understand. For we walk by
faith, and not by sight. And the glory comes
from believing, not from understanding. Re-
member this :

The things we do not understand are all work-
ing together for good to them that trust. (Rom.
8:28.)

You go into a great silk mill. Running the
length of the room is a massive steel shaft. It
is whirling away, hundreds of revolutions per
minute. All the wheels upon it are running in
the same direction with it. But across the room
are a score of other smaller shafts, called "coun-
ter shafts." They are all linked to the great main
shaft. But they are all running in exactly the
opposite direction. You look up to your friend
who is guiding you through the great mill, and
say, **I do not understand these counter-shafts.
They all seem to be running the wrong way, op-
posite to the great main shaft. They must surely
all be defeating the purpose of the owner of tlie
mill." "Ah," says your friend, "you are mistaken
about that. Just follow me. and you will see."
And you will follow him down the long aisles into
the weaving room. And there you see the busy
looms, driven by these very counter-shafts, turn-
ing out yard after yard of the rich, lustrous silk
for the making of which this great mill is being
run. You see that the very counter-shafts which
seemed to be working against the main shaft are

8o LIFE TALKS.

in reality all working together with that shaft to
carry out the purpose of the mill-owner in turn-
ing out the beautiful silken fabric.

Child of God, all things are not good. Nor
does God say that. For sin is not good. And
sorrow is not good. Nor is suffering good, in it-
self. But "all things zvork together for good."
And God does say that. And the things you do
not understand, the things which seem to be all
working against 3^ou, all these are really work-
ing together to turn out from God's workshop
His one perfect, finished product — a man or
woman conformed to the image of His Son,
Jesus Christ. And concerning these "all things"
come Christ's sweet words to us, as to them of
old, "Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst
believe thou shouldst see the glory of God?"

Whate'er is best for me, my God will bring to me,

If I do only wait, and trust, and pray,
¥/hate'er seems dark to me, shall end in light for me;

'Tis but the gloaming which fore-rims the day,

The Spirit-Filled Life.

(Jno. 7:38-390

*'He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath
said, out of his innermost being shall flozv rivers
of living zvater."

''But this spake he of the Spirit, which they
that believe on hint sJioiild receive."

If, some summer day, you were tramping
down a certain mountain pass, you would, by-
and-by, come to one of the most famous of Swiss
glaciers. In the perpendicular wall of that great
glacier, summer sun and warm winds have hol-
lowed out a great ice cavern. You enter the arch
and, as you stand in the fantastic cave, you are
chilled through with its cold. Ice above you ; ice
before you ; ice all about you ; — ^masses of ice ;
miles of ice. And now, as you gaze, there springs
up at your feet a crystal stream of water from
the very heart of the glacier, and begins its jour-
ney down the valley. You could almost step
across it where it finds its birth. But, Hke the
true Christian life, as it goes it grows, and a few
miles down the valley, it is a strong, deep, leap-
ing stream. The birds dip their bills into it, and,
drinking, lift their heads to God as if in thanks-
giving. The trees slip their roots down the bank
81

82 LIFE TALKS.

and draw np its moisture. The lowing herds
sink their nostrils in its pools and drink of its re-
freshing. By and by it enters a great lake, and
seems lost. But it finds issue, and crossing cen-
tral France, it takes a sudden turn and runs
southward^ and then, at its mouth, broad enough
for fishermen to draw their seines, and for great
ships to sail upon its bosom, it is at last lost in
Europe's greatest inland sea. And this beautiful,
sparkling river, with all its refreshing and bless-
ing, springs from the frozen heart of a great
Swiss glacier!

Have you ever looked up into the Lord's face
and cried, ''O, Christ, how cold my heart is!
How cold when I study Thy blessed Book with
all its wondrous words of life; how callous it
seems in the sacred chamber of secret prayer;
how icy as I look with such seeming unconcern
upon the sin and suffering of the lost world;
how frozen in its lack of love for the Christless
millions of heathendom! O Christ, is there any-
thing that will melt this ice-berg heart of mine,
and cause a river of love and peace and power to
flow forth from it to the world about me ?" And
Jesus Christ says, "There is. I have it." The
God who can cause a river of refreshing to break
forth from the frigid heart of an Alpine glacier
can make a river of life burst forth from your
cold heart. Are you a believer? Then listen.
"Out of your" — do you heed it?---"out of your
innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'*

THE SPIRIT-PILLBD LIFE. 83

Let us be glad that Christ has made this truth
so plain. Metaphors and similes are often hard
to explain. One man has one interpretation, an-
other man a different one. But here there is no
chance for wrangling or disputings ; none for dif-
ference of interpretation. The Holy Spirit in-
terprets this passage Himself. For the Word of
God says of this beautiful figure, "This spake He
of the Spirit which they that believe on Him
should receive." There is no room for doubt
about it. God is talking of a river of spiritual
blessing; of the river of His own life that He
means shall flow from the heart and life of every
child of His. And no power in earth has a right
to cheat us of that blessed river of life. It is
our birthright, and no man can keep us out of
it if we fulfil the simple conditions Christ gives.

This river of life is the normal life: of the
Christian.

We recall a glorious morning drive under the
sky of a southern spring day. The world seemed
intoxicated with life. The tree-roots were suck-
ing life from the earth in which they were hid.
The trunks were passing it upward to the branch-
es. The branches were pouring it forth to the
very tips of the swelling buds. The seeds buried
in the ground were quickening with life. The
day was humming with the- drone and buzz of

§4 LIFE TALKS.

insect life. The very air you breathed made the
pulsing blood to leap and thrill with life. And
the thought was borne home with power, "If
God's normial plan for His physical world is one
of such abounding, over-flowing life, why should
it not be the same for the spiritual life of His
own children?" "Ah," you say, "but this river
of the Spirit is the exceptional life. It is beyond
the ordinary. It is not the normal life of the
believer of to-day." Are we sure of that? What
is the believer's normal life? Is the usual life of
the Christian the normal life God has designed
for him ? Or, does it not rather reveal the shame
of his shortcoming of it?

To know naught of the power of God ; to live
a barren, fruitless life in the kingdom of God ; to
have made light in the service of God: to be
so allied with the world as hardly to be known
as the children of God — is this the normal Hfe of
God's child? Nay, never. It may be the usual
life — alas for that! — but it is never the normal
life. It may be the one we are living. But it is
an awful sag from the one Christ means us to
live.

Would you look upon a picture of the normal
life? Here it is. Mark it well. "And the mul-
titude of them that believed were of one heart
and one soul : and great grace was upon them all :
and all that believed were together: and they,
continuing daily with one accord in the temple,
and breaking bread from house to house, did eat

THE SPJRlT-flLLED LIPn. 85

their meat with ghuhicss and singleness of heart,
praising God and having favor with all the peo-
ple. And the Lord added to the church daily such
as were being saved." Lives filled with grace and
joy, love and unity, testimony and power, and
favor both with men and God — these were the
normal lives in those glad days. Yea, and God
means these to be the normal lives yet. Verily,
this life is not the exception in God's plan. It is
the type. It is the worldly, powerless, fruitless
Christian life which is abnormal, that is. away
from the normal. The Spirit-filled life is God's
own pattern in the mount: God's own perfect
model for our lives. For God never has designed
and never will endure any substitute for the in-
dividual, consecrated. Spirit-filkd life, and any
church which falls short of this high ideal will
miss its high calling however pretentious its
claims, however elaborate its organization.

r/n'.9 river of life is ix us who bKlikve.

A belated ship had come in from sea. Her
water barrels were exhausted. Her crew were
perishing with thirst. By and by they sighted
another vessel, and the cry went up from the
perishing men, "Send us water; send us water."
Back from the captain of the other ship came the
strange reply: — "Throw over your pails and
draw." "But we want not this salt water to mad-
den our thirst. We are famishiuir for life-giving^

86 LIFE TALKS,

water." Back again came the same strange re-
ply : — "Throw over your pails and draw." Once
again with parched lips and burning throats, the
now desperate crew called for water. And then
came back the answer: — ''You are in the mouth
of the Amazon. Throw over your pails and
draw." And, sure enough, all unknown to them-
selves, they had sailed into the mouth of the
Amazon, which is, at mid-river, so wide as to
be out of sight of land. And, all the while they
were thirsting, perishing, and crying for water,
the sweet, fresh water of that great river was
all about them, and they needed only to draw, to
drink, and find life.

Just so are men and women crying out to God
for the Holy Spirit to come : pleading for a bap-
tism of the Holy Spirit; waiting to receive the
Holy Spirit. Yet, all the while, the Holy Spirit
is here. For this river of life, this Spirit of the
living God, becomes the possession of every one
of His children upon belief in Jesus Christ for
salvation. H there were no other test to prove
this than Christ's own word here that would seem
to be all-sufficient. How clear and explicit it is.
"He that believeth out of his innermost being
shall flow." "But this spake he of the Spirit
which they that believe on Him should receive."
No other condition named, none other needed, but
this simple one of faith in Him for salvation.
The faith which trusts Him then for salvation:
and then the faith which presses on to give the

Tlin SPIRIT-riLLED LlfE. 87

life to Him in dedication : which commits all
things to His keeping: which draws day by day
upon Him for His resurrection life: which con-
stantly leans upon and lives upon Him for all
things : — it is this faith alone which the fuller,
more complete, and more all-sweeping it becomes,
brings to the child of God an ever-increasing,
ever-enriching knowledge of the indwelling Spirit
of God.

Of like import is our Lord's word to His dis-
ciples in the fourteenth of John. There He tells
them that the Father will send them "another
Comforter." "For He dwelleth zmtli you and
shall be in you." That word "another" is signi-
ficant. There are two words for it in the Greek.
One means another of a different kind. The sec-
ond means another of the same kind. Interest-
ingly enough, our English word "another" con-
tains this double meaning. For example : You go
into a hardware store to buy a pen-knife. You
select one seemingly perfect. But when you
come to use it you find it otherwise. The ^(\g^
is dull. The steel is brittle and worthless. The
first strain you put upon the blade it snaps in two.
You go back to the merchant and say: "This
]:nife does not please me at all. I want another."
You mean another of a different kind. But, now
suppose when you buy your second knife you
find it just right. The blade is keen as a razor.
The steel is of the finest quality. The handle is
of a beautiful pearl. You are delij^htcd with

88 urn TALKS.

your purchase. You think of a friend to whom
you would Hke to give one Hke it. So you go
back again to the merchant and say — ''I am de-
Hghted with this knife. Please give me another,"
And, now you mean another of the same kind,
exactly like the one you have just bought.

When the Lord Jesus was going away from His
own and said *'The Father will send you another
Comforter," He used the Greek word which
means ''another of the same kind." That is, the
very same as Himself. "The very same life you
have seen flowing from Me; the very same the
Father sent down from Heaven with Me; the
very same by which He has done His wondrous
works through Me; that very same Holy Spirit
shall be in you, even as He was not in the Old
Testament saints. He was zvith them; but he
shall be in you." And so with all reverence, yet
with all joy and gladness of heart may we say
that the very same Holy Spirit who dwelt in the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Is dwelling in
us, God's children. Let us believe upon His word,
that He is so indwelling in all of us who are be-
lievers in Him, and just waiting for a chance to
live out His life in all Its fullness through us.

And so we pass naturally to our next thought,
that

This river of life will fill us as we yikld.

The stream of life and power from God runs
along the river-bed of the will of God. Where-

THE SPIRir-riLLIiD LIFE. 89

fore the man or wcnian who is most fully in the
will of God must most fully know the life and
fullness of God. The one iMan who had the
Spirit '^without measure" was He who at the be-
ginning said to God, **Lo, I came to do Thy will."
In other words, self-will is a dyke; the yielded
will is a channel. The dyke of self-will keeps
out the fulness of God's life. But the channel of
the yielded will furnishes an avenue for its out-
flow. Why does the harp breathe forth its rav-
ishing strains under the hand of the master-
harper? Because it is yielded to him. Why is
the molten bronze filled with every outline of the
beauty of the mould ? Because it is yielded to it.
Why does the great ship plough her way through
storm and surge to her destined haven? Because
she is yielded to the will and touch of the helms-
man. If the harp, and the bronze, and the ship
each had a will of its own it could hinder the
master's highest purpose for it. You do have
such a will. And you can resist God. There-
fore you must needs yield the life to Him, if so
be that He may fill it. And that fuller life will
come. It may not be in a flash. It may
come by degrees. But as you yield your life by
one definite act, and then, day by day, learn to
live out that act in a life of yieldedness and min-
istry, God's river of life will surely and steadily
manifest itself from your innermost being.

90 UPB TALKS.

This river of life will flow ]?orth from us as zue

SERVE.

That was a sweet prayer of a young Christian
girl — 'Xord, fill me to overflowing. I cannot hold
much. But I can overflow a great deal." And
she was right. For with many the desire con-
cerning the Holy Spirit is to hoid, and to enjoy.
Whereas with God it is to give, and to overflow
to others. For we see the Spirit of God here
pictured as a great, life-giving river. But every
river needs an outlet. When it has none it ceases
to be a river, and becomes only a stagnant pool.
The river of the Spirit is subject to the same
great river-law. It seeks an outlet for the divine
outflow of life and love in everyday, practical
ministry to others. It begins its flow as soon as
it finds a channel. And it keeps it up so long as
we remain such. Jesus does not say "In his in-
nermost being shall stay" but ''out from his in-
nermost being shall flow' these living streams.
That is the one purpose for which rivers exist —
to flow. Cut off their outlet and you stop the
flow.

Here is an open secret for us all. The man or
woman who will offer the Spirit-river this simple
outlet of humble, willing service will know His
steady over-flow. People plunge the probe of
self-examination into their inner selves, seeking
all sorts of inward, subjective causes for their
failure of spiritual life and experience. Ordinarily

THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE. 91

the reason for that faikire is amazingly simple,
and near at hand. Is the life selfish, and self-
centered ? Is it failing in daily, practical ministry
to others ? And would you know the remedy ? It
is this. Do not try to shut up the Spirit in a
stagnant pool of selfishness. Let Him have His
river-way of flow through outlet — the outlet of
loving, practical service to others. Try this.
Then all your spiritual moods and morbidness
will disappear in the daily, joyful consciousness
of His steady outflow through the channel of
service.

There comes to mind a dear railroad friend, a
conductor on a freight train. Not a man of learn-
ing as the world counts learning. But he knew
God. There came to him a time when the battle
was on over the consecration of his life to God.
Coming from his train one night long after mid-
night he fought out this battle in the woods on a
hill back of his home town. There in the dark-
ness he gave his life to God. From that time the
river of life flowed with increasing power and
abundance from the railroad man's innermost be-
ing. One day he was taking his train to a distant
city. In the train was a stock-car containing a
valuable race horse, on its way to the city races.
In charge of the horse was a special care-taker.
By and by, for some cause, the train was side-
tracked and held in waiting. As the wait grew
more tedious this man grew very angry. He be-
gan to stride \iT> and down the track, fic-ccly

92 LIPB TALKS.

cursing and blaspheming. The Christian conduc-
tor bore it as long as he could. Then walking up
to the godless blasphemer, he put his hand upon
the latter's shoulder and said, gently, "My friend,
I wish you would cease taking that Name in vain.
It is the most precious Name in the world to me,
and it grieves me to hear it blasphemed." As he
talked on in this strain of the Man who had died
for him, to redeem him from death and sin, a
great change came over the blasphemer. He
ceased cursing. Evidently he was profoundly
moved by the words of the Christian railroad
man. Presently he turned to him and said —
"Conductor, I have a goodly sum of money on my
person. I had made all my plans to spend it
when I reached the city. I was going to pass the
night in sin and debauchery. But your words
have touched me. I have changed my mind. As
soon as I reach that city and have put away my
horse I shall turn straight home to my wife and
children. And by the grace of God I shall here-
after be a different man."

Out from the innermost being of our railroad
friend the river of life was flowing, touching and
quickening another life as it flowed. And why?
Because he was yielded to it, and was willing to
let it have its way of service. Is there anything to
hinder the same in us? Nothing — if we but offer
it the same yieldingness, the same willingness for
humble, every-day, unselfish service.

ri-ia spiRii'-i'iLiMD Lira. 93

This river of life may flow forth from us uncon-
sciously.

I was in a great city, teaching. A difficult ques-
tion of guidance had arisen. Day after day I
had prayed about it. But the perplexity seemed
only to increase. At last I came to the danger
point of anxiety, so earnestly had light been
sought and found not. And then this happened.
One morning before the dawn I suddenly awak-
ened from sleep. The first consciousness that
came in the darkness was that a heavy wagoii was
rumbling past the window, in the street outside.
The next was that some one on the wagon — pre-
sumably its driver — was whistling a tune. And
the next vivid impression was of the tune he was
whistling. It was

"Then we'll trust and obey :
For there's no other way,
To be happy in Jesus,
But to trust and obey."

Like a flash out from the darkness, came the
thought as from the Lord, "Why, my child, this
is all I expect of you. Simply act upon the light
as best you see it, and trust Me to lead you. There
is nothing you need but to trust and obey." At
once I saw I had been unduly anxious about the
guidance, and that this was the exact message I
needed in this time of perplexity and uncertainty.
Light flooded my pathway. Perplexity made way
for peace. The problem was solved. The rumble

94 LIFE TALKS.

of the dray wheels died away in the distance. The
song of the whistler ceased. But a message had
gone straight home to my heart more wondrous
than any sermon ever heard. I do not know
whether the unseen whistler was a child of God.
But I believe it. And out from his innermost be-
ing was flowing that river of life which brought
into the life of another child of God such a touch
of life, and light, and refreshing as he who passed
on into the darkness never knew or dreamed.

"O Lord," said one of His saints, "I thank
Thee that Thou hast forgotten all the sins I re-
member, yet dost remember all the good deeds, I
have forgotten." That is true. And out from
our lives, all unconscious to us, may flow a stream
of influence and blessing of which we may in no
wise be conscious. But he does not forget it. And
it shall all be revealed in the day of manifestation
to our imspeakable joy, and His eternal glory.

"This learned I from the shadow of a tree,
Where to and fro swayed on a garden wall
Our shadow-selves, our influence, may fall
Where we can never be."

* * * *

"And he shewed me a pure river of water of
life * * * proceeding out of the throne of
God." Rev. 22: I.

"This Jesus * * * having received of the
Father the promise of the Holy Ghost * * *
hath shed forth this which ye now see." Acts 2 :
32-33. - -

THE SPIRIT-PILLED LIPE. 95

Wonderful river of life! It proceedeth from
the very throne of the Father. It was received
by the Son from the Father. It is shed forth by
the Son upon us other children of the Father.
And now as we believe — and yield — and serve, it
will abide — fill — and flow forth from us to the
sinning, suffering, dying world here below which
so sorely needs the touch of His divine life
through us, His Spirit-indwelt children.

Jacob's Struggle,

(Gen. 32:24-32.)

There are four or five great truths that stand
out in this story of Jacob as the lofty peaks of
a mountain chain rise above the range of which
they form a part. The first is,

* * * *
There zms great selfishness.

We have no evidence that Jacob's Hfe during
the years just prior to this was one marred by any
heinous sin. We do not know that it had broken
out into gross forms of self-indulgence, which
brought any special judgment of God upon him.
But it seems to have been like the lives of many
other children of God: a Hfe which was simply
lived for self; a life such as the world about us
lives, and from which world we do not seem to
be very different as we ourselves live it. "Well,"
we say, *'if there was nothing more to smirch Ja-
cob's Hfe than mere selfishness, that does not
seem to be much." But that was enough. When
3^ou recall what this name Jacob means you will
realize what selfishness means in the life of a
child of God. He was caHed "Supplanter." And
the Holy Spirit could scarcely have chosen a word
96

JACOB'S STRUGGLE. 97

that would more clearly express what selfishness
docs than this — that the self-life is the supplanter
of the Christ-life. Is it not enough that selfish-
ness supplants the pozvcr of God? The man who
lives a purely selfish life has no power in prayer;
no power in testimony ; no power in work for the
unsaved ; no power for God in the community
about him.

Is it not enough that selfishness supplants the
peace of God? For the fret and care of trying
to serve two masters — of being called by God's
name and yet trying to live in God's world just
as the worldling is living — this gives a man no
peace. ''Thou hast made us for Thyself, O
God," said Augustine, "and our souls are rest-
less till they rest in Thee." And until a child of
Cod's life rests in God and in God alone, he will
not find that peace of God which God wants to
give.

Is it not enough that selfishness supplants the
lo-z'c of God? For the two cannot co-exist. God
is utterly unselfish. God is love — love of others.
And when we live a life that is purely a life for
self, the love of God cannot fill our hearts, and
flow through those hearts to others.

Is it not enough that selfishness supplants the
purpose of God? The selfish man sits in his
cushioned pew and worships God in his way.
But to enter into the purpose of Christ for a lost
world ; to share the agony of Christ for lost souls ;
to join. in the intercession of Christ for the giv-

98 UPB TALKS.

ing of the Gospel to this dark world ; to become
a partner in the purposes of God — that never en-
ters into the life of selfishness. Is it not enough
that selfishness should supplant the life of God
in this way?

Moreover God has set His stamp upon selfish-
ness as the supreme foe of Himself. There are
three deadly enemies of God : the world, the flesh,
and the devil. We are in the world, but God
tells us not to be of it. We may resist the devil,
and he will flee from us. But we must renounce
the self within, if God is to have the complete
victory in our lives. Over the door of the In-
ferno one saw : *'A11 ye who enter here abandon
hope." Over the portal of Christian discipleship
is written : "All ye who enter here abandon self."
Some one has well said : ''There is a cross and a
throne in every heart. We may put Christ on
the throne and self on the cross. Or we may put
self on the throne, and Christ on the cross." Self-
ishness is indeed the supplanter of God in the
soul. God always dwelt in the tabernacle in His
shekinah glory and presence. Yet there was a
veil that hid Him from those who entered there
with Him. So God is always dwelling in the
heart of His child, but the veil that darkens, and
mars, and limits the manifestation of His pres-
ence is the veil of the flesh — the self-life within
us. Wherefore when God, who is absolute and
utter unselfishness, meets a child of His, like
Jacob, given up to selfishness, there can be but

JACOB'S STRUGGLE. 99

one issue. God enters into controversy with that
life of selfishness. And thus, next : —

* * * *

There zcas a great struggle.

For as we read on in the narrative we find that

God was striving) ivith Jacob.

"God striveth," the margin of the Revision
puts it. We do not read it so. But God does.
Listen : "And Jacob was left alone, and there
wrestled a man (the God-man) with him (Ja-
cob) until the breaking of the day. And when
He (the God-man) saw that He prevailed not
against him (Jacob) He touched the hollow of
his (Jacob's) tliigh : and the hollow of Jacob's
thigh was out of joint." This is God's story.
How clear it is! There was a man wrestling
against Jacob all the long night. And Jacob's
wrestling was a resistive wTCstling. It was not
Jacob wrestling with God for a blessing. It was
God wrestling with Jacob to break down and put
away from his life the things that were hindering
the ever present and ever gracious purpose ot
God to bless His child with the greatest possible
measure of blessing. How much m.ore consistent
with the nature and love of God is this I A love
w'hich is more eager and willing to bless His
children than they themselves are to be blessed.
**God striveth." How this God of grace strives
with the sinner! How he strives with that un-

100 IIFB TALKS.

ceasing inner voice of the Spirit in the soul!
How He strives in the tender entreaties of loved
ones. How He strives in all the vidssitndes of
life, death, suffering, affliction,' and the like!
Tenderly^ patiently, lovingly through all the long,
rebellious, weary years of rejection does God
strive to wirl the soul of "the sinner from death to
life. But let it be noted that in this instance

God was striving not for a' soul, hut for a life.

For a' man may be a chiH of ■ God, yet not a
dedicated one. He may give up his sins, yet not
himself. His soul may Ise saved, but his life
unyielded to God. Jacob was 'Such a child of
God. : He had been saved long ere this. God
was not striving for his soul. He was striving
for his life. He was striving to win him away
from- a past which' had been lived for self, to a
future wbich should be lived for God and His
glory.

If you turn to the margin of James 4: 5 you
will find a beautiful rendering which reads like
this : "That Spirit which He made to dwell within
us yearneth for us with jealous envy." What a
picture of the Holy Spirit dwelling within God's
child! Like a wife who, when she sees her hus-
band giving his affections to any other than her-
self to whom they solely belong, feels her heart
go out in jealous, wifely envy for those affections.
Or like a mother who, when she sees her boy
giving up his life to reckless, out-breaking sin,

JACOB'S STRUGGLE. loi

burns with earnest, jealous longing for that life
that is yielded to evil-doing. Just so, when the
Holy Spirit comes into one who has been saved
by the blood of Jesus Christ, who has been re-
deemed as a precious possession for God Himself,
and then sees such a life going out toward
the world, toward its frivolity, its foolishness ;
that self-same Holy Spirit is filled with godly,
jealous yearning for that life. There is a godly,
jealous envy for the years which the world is
stealing away while He yearns to redeem them ;
for the talents which are being wasted while He
is yearning to use them in His kingdom ; for the
soul which the world is staining and marring
while He is yearning to conform it to the glorious
image of His Son. And hence the mighty striv-
ing of the Spirit for His own.

That is exactly what occurs in your life and in
my life. How often has the Hofy Spirit yearned
for us, pleading with us to give that life to Hini,
to turn away from the world, to turn away from
its emptiness, to give ourselves as a burnt-offer-
ing to God, that Jesus Christ may have His own
blessed way with the life He has bought with His
own precious blood. That is God's picture of
this struggle — a God of love struggling to break
down in His child's life the thing that was hin-
dering Him from having His full and perfect
way of blessing, and power, and ministry through
that child. And we need only look within to see
that this carnal mind — this self-life — is the su-

102 LIFE TALKS.

preme foe struggling against God, to hinder and
baffle the mighty purpose of God in our lives.

God's child zvas resisting.^

That was what Jacob was doing. All the night
long he was fighting a desperate battle against
God. There was no gleam of spear, no clash of
sword, no hissing of dart. But the fiercest fight
of Jacob's life was on and on to death. We can
almost hear his hard, quick breathing. We can al-
most see the set teeth ; the straining, writhing body
of the wrestler ; the desperate countenance fixed in
its purpose of resistance. With every atom of
power and persistence within him, Jacob was re-
sisting God — the God who wanted to bless him!
And so do we. God strives to wrest from our
hands the poison draught of pleasure which the
world puts to our lips, and we resist Him. God
tries to overthrow some secret idol that we are
worshipping, and we resist Him. God would take
from our grasp some edged tool of Satan behind
whose glitter death lurks for us, and we resist
Him. God takes us by the hand to lead us away,
in love, from the snares and pitfalls which the
lusts of the flesh spread for our unwary feet, and
we resist Him. And then as we battle against the
Spirit of God there comes into our lives the next
crisis which came into Jacob's at this point-

JACOB'S STRUGGLG. 103

There 7i'<is a great bricakdovvn.

*He touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh: and
the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint."
Jacob broke down under the hand of the mighty
wrestler. We said to a physician friend one day,
as we were chatting about this: — ''Doctor, what
is the exact significance of God's touching Jacob
upon the sinew of his thigh?" He replied: "The
sinew of the thigh is the strongest in the human
body. A horse could scarcely tear away the limb,
pulling it straight. Only as he twisted it could he
tear it apart." Ah, I see, God has to break us
down at the strongest part of our self-life before
He can have His own way of blessing with us.

We talk about surrender. We talk about sur-
rendering all. But when it comes to the core of
the matter, "all" usually means some one supreme
point of issue between us and God ; some one
strong citadel in which the self-life is entrenched ;
some one key point which God must carry by as-
sault before He can have His way with us. That
great thigh sinew — like the trunk on which a tree
stands as the storms assail it — like the column on
which a great house stavs its massiveness ; that
great sinew straining all night against God —
bringing to bear all the resistive power of the
wrestler against God — God touched that and
broke him down. Just so does God deal with us.
That pride — God touches, and breaks it down
until the self-life is humbled in the dust. That

104 LIFE TALKS.

money the Christian business man is piling up
until covetousness is eating into his heart like a
canker — God touches it, and it takes wings and
flies away. That idol which self is worshipping —
God touches it, and like Dagon, hurls- it to the^
ground, maimed and mutilated. That strength in
which self revels — God lays His finger upon it and
withers it, and self is brought to helplessness. Ah,
we do not know how to deal with the self -life.
But God does. And He takes away the thing
upon which it feeds, and robs it of the power upon
which it depends, and cuts away the props upon
which it stands, until it lies in helplessness at His
feet.

Here is a Christian business man. He has
been redeemed. His mouth is full of praise and
joyful testimony at the first. But he goes out
into the world. He begins to live just as the
worldly man lives. It is all gaining and no giv-
ing; it is all hoarding, and no spending and being
spent for God. It is all for self and
none for God. He keeps on in this path. And
bye-and-byef his lips are sealed in the testimony
meeting. You hear no voice of prayer from him.
His conscious communion with God is broken.
Bye-and-bye coldness steals into his heart and he
becomes a powerless man. And then some day
a strange thing happens. Something comes
along and sweeps away the wealth. Some idol
is touched and it withers. Perhaps the strength
is laid low ; perhaps sickness befalls. The fur-

JACOB'S STRUGGin. 105

nace and the crucible are put to work. And
people wonder why that man's life is in such a
place 01 affliction. But God does not wonder.
God knows what He is doing; what He is per-
mitting. And when that man, prostrate and
broken, is brought to the end of himself in help-
lessness, you will see a new thing. Into that
man's life come transformation, power, blessing,
and a new and living walk with God, all because
God has broken him down at the point of his
self -life that was holding him for self and the
w^orld. God has to rob some men of about all
they have, before He can get them for Himself.
As long as it is God and something, we cling to
the something. But when it becomes God or
nothing, then we turn to God because there is
nothing else left. There are some lives that turn
to Him simply and sweetly in fullness of devotion
from the beginning. There are other lives which
God has to deal with as He dealt with Jacob.
Often, what we will not yield God has ^to take;
what we will not give up God has to break up.
A godly woman used to say: "God has not only
pulled me up by the roots, but He seems to be
shaking the dirt oflF the roots." "Take me,
break me, make me," seems to be the prayer
some of us have to pray, before God has His per-
fect wav with us.

io6 UFB TALKS.

There was a great victory.

It mas the victory of love — the love that will
not let us. go. How gladly would Jacob have
broken away from that mighty grasp. How
quickly would he have fled away into the darkness
and the night if he could. But the unseen wres-
tler would not let him go until He had con-
quered him — because He loved him. A kind-
hearted surgeon is pressing the keen knife into
the cancer, which is eating out our life. He holds
our struggling hand with steady grasp. He will
not let us go, however much we are suffering.
We look up into his face and cry out, **I suffer;
let me go." But He says, *'I will not let you go
until I have my way of blessing with you. I will
not let you go — because I love you." Another
loving hand is pressing a bitter potion to our lips.
We cry again, **I do not like it; let me go." A
loving voice answers: "A deadly poison is burn-
ing in your veins. This is the antidote for it.
I will not let you go — because I love you." Even
so do we look up to God and cry : **Why do you
keep me in this fiery furnace! Why do you let
these heavy burdens oppress me? Why do you
suffer me to be so sorely and constantly tested
and tried? Why do you not relieve me? Why
do you not let me go ?" And the voice comes to us
''I will not let you go until I have won you for
Myself. I will not let you go until I have purged
you of your dross. I will not let you go until

JACOB'S STRUCCin. 107

I have humbled and crushed to the earth the self-
life, which is the deadliest foe to My life and
power within you. I will not let you go because
I love you, and am seeking to win you from that
which is empty, hollow, and unsatisfying, to that
which is full, and rich, and blessed in Christ
Jesus."

* * * *
There was great power in prayer.

But had not Jacob prayed all night? Not he.
He had striven all night ; and against God. But
it was only when the thigh-collapsing touch of
God came that Jacob clung and prayed, and was
victorious. For the birth-place of prayer is help-
lessness. Prayer comes to its own ; enters into
its lawful heritage of mighty power only with
men who have reached the end of themselves and
are clinging to God. Power in prayer did not
come to Jacob while he strove in his own strength,
but when he clung in his own helplessness. What
poor humans are we, that God must needs let us
be driven into the stress of necessity and help-
lessness because in no other way can he constrain
us to betake ourselves to prayer to Him! Yet
it is even so. Do we pray when the wind is
a-beam. the skies fair, and our ship running free
before the breeze? Nay, but when the mast is
overboard, the rudder gone, and the ship in the
trough — then we pray. Do we pray when our
loved ones are in Drn'^t^m'tv. henlth. and streng^th?

io8 LIPB TALKS.

Nay, but when the sober- faced physician shakes
his head, and says he has done all he can, and
death's shadow settles down over the chamber of
a precious one — then we pray. Strength is self-
reliant and thinks it needs no God. But weak-
ness is driven to God-reliance and there learns
the secrets of the prayer life. Helplessness be-
gets dependence — dependence leads to prayer : and
prayer brings power. Out of our own insuffi-
ciency into God's sufficiency, by the pathway of
prayer, is the secret of power. Wherefore self-
strength may be worse than weakness. For the
weak man learns to cling and pray. But the
strong one stays self-centred and misses God.

Faith,

"Por ye arc all sons of Cod tiiroucti faith in
Christ Jesus." — Cal. 3 : 26.

The Word of God docs nut much concern
itself with definitions of faith. But it is often
iUustrating and picturing faith. And none of its
pictures is simpler or more beautifully clear than
that one in Pleb. 12:2. — "Looking unto Jesus."
^ -^ -^ -jp.
Faith is looking unto jesus.

Exactly what is it to look unto Jesus with the
faith that saves the soul? Let us illustrate. You
owe a thousand dollars. You give your creditor
a note for it. That nole is endorsed by a rich
friend. Suppose it to be in the days when im-
prisonment for debt is in force. By and by you
become bankrupt. Not one dollar do you have
to meet your obligation. As the day approaches
upon which your note falls due your creditor be-
gins to harass you. He exacts every dollar. He
threatens you with im])risonment if you fail to
pay. Straightway your heart is filled with anx-
ious care. You cannot possibly pay the debt. As
the hour draws near your distrcs<? of soul grows
almost unbearable as you think of the suffering
of your loved ones whom you have unwittingly

no LIFE TALKS.

involved in your fate. But now you remember
that you have a kind friend as endorser on your
note. You go to him in your crisis. At once he
says — "My friend, do not worry one moment
longer, I am your endorser on this note. I have
ample assets to meet it. Just look to me to pay
it."

At once your whole attitude changes. You
leave off worr3dng. Peace fills your heart. An-
other man has taken the whole burden. And
thus it is lifted entirely from you. You have
ceased to try. You simply trust. That is, you
are looking to another, and to him alone to pay
your debt. Hold before your mind this thought
of a man looking to his endorser to pay his note.-
Hold it there not for one moment, but for several.
Hold it until you have a sharp, clear picture of
what your attitude of mind would be if you were
thus depending upon a friend to pay your note.
Do you grasp it clearly? Can you think it
through? Can you put yourself exactly in that
place? Have you held it there now until there
is no blur nor fog to the mental picture of just
hozi' you would look to an endorser to pay your
note? Well, that is faith.

jic ^ ^ ^

Faith is dkpe^nding.

Surely. Tha^ is exactly what looking to an-
other means. That is precisely what the maker

FAITH. in

of the note does toward his endorser. It is
relying upon another. It is counting ujxjn him.
It is throwing your weight upon him, and his
word. It is depending upon him to do the very
thing he has promised. You wish to send your
little child down street in the city. A friend
offers to take her in charge. You give her into
his keeping, saying, ''I look to you to take care
of my child." You simply mean that you de-
pend upon him to do it. You break a limb by
accident. Your friend the surgeon comes to set
it. You say, ''Doctor, I look to you to set that
limb aright.'' You are about to take a journey.
You take your seat in the train. You say to the
conductor, "Friend, I look to you to bring me to
my destination.' In all these cases where you
are looking to others you mean that you are
depending upon them. You are counting upon
them to do the thing in question, and are making
no effort whatever to do it yourself. This is ex-
actly what looking to Jesus for salvation is.
He is a specialist in saving men. That is His
business and His alone. "He shall save his people
from their sins." Therefore you are to look
to Him, count upon Him, depoid upon Him to
save your soul just as simply, helplessly, and ab-
solutely as you, a bankrupt debtor, would de-
pend- upon your rich endorser to pay your note.
And when a man passes from this looking at
Jesus as a historical personage, to this dependent
looking to Jesus to save his soul, he passes from

112 LIFE TALKS.

the faith of the devils who beheve and tremble, to
the faith of God's sons who believe and are saved.

^ ^ 3fC !fC

Faith is LOOKING away from, everything else
unto Jesus.
The word "looking unto" has a meaning which
is not expressed in our own version of the Bible.
It means not only looking unto but ''looking
away." ''O^^-looking unto Jesus," is the ren-
dering in Luther's translation. The man who is
looking unto one thing or person, must look
away from everything else. When you trust an-
other to guide you on a dark night you look
azvay from your own knowledge of the way unto
his. When you put yourself under the instruc-
tion of a great teacher 3^ou look away from your
own ignorance uhto his wisdom. When in weak-
ness you lean upon the strong arm of a friend
you look away from your own helplessness unto
his strength. So when you look to Jesus for
salvation you must needs look to Him alone.
You look away from your own merits, away
from your own efforts and strugglings, away
from your own self-righteousness — unto Jesus.
Especially is it true that : —

Faith is looking azvay from your own works —
unto ji^sus.
It is Jesus who saves. And faith is looking
nnto Him for salvation. Therefore we do need

FAITH. 113

to steadily look away from our own works —
unto Jesus. Nothing in the Word of God is
clearer than this. *'We reckon therefore that a
man is justified by faith, apart from the works
of the law." (Rom. 3:28, R. V.) "But to
him that zcorketh not, but bclieveth on him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for
righteousness." (Rom. 4:5.) "The blessedness
of the man unto whom God reckoneth righteous-
ness apart from zvorks." (Rom. 4:6, R. V.)

And why does God lay such stress upon our
looking away from works unto Jesus in order
to be saved? Simply because the state of the
lost soul is such that good works utterly fall short
of meeting that soul's supreme need. For con-
sider a moment these two great facts concerning
the unsaved soul.

The unsaved man has a sin-stained past.
The unsaved man is condemned to death.
How wholly insufficient are good works to
meet this dual need of the soul. Will a good
deed wash away guilt? Can acts of charity
cleanse the blood-stained past? Can works of
mercy purge a conscience crimsoned with sin?
Can anything a man may do or be atone for sin?
Nay, "without shedding of blood there is no
remission of sins." Jesus is our only sin bear-
er. Jesus alone is the purger of the soul from
guilt. We must look away from works unto
Him alone. And so too of the sentence of death
upon everv lost soul because of sin. "The soul

114 UPB TALKS.

that sinneth it shall die." Can any good deed
lift a soul out from under the awful shadow of
its sentence of death? Though we give our
bodies to be burned, will that do it? Though
we bestow all our goods to feed the poor, will
that do it? Will a genial disposition, or a kind
heart, or a loving ministry to the suffering and
needy, will these do it? Nay. A lofty purpose,
a moral life, a kind heart, can never lift that
condemnation from the guilty soul. But Jesus
can lift it. For He Himself has suffered the
death sentence. He has suffered it in our place.
And he who believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ
"shall not come into condemnation but is passed
from death unto Hfe." (Jno. 5:24.) Again: —

* * * *

Faith is looking away from your own ^aith —

unto Jesus.

Some people try to have faith in their own
faith, instead of faith in Jesus Christ. They
keep looking for a subjective condition. They
ought to be looking to an objective Christ. True
faith pays no attention whatever to itself. It
centers all its gaze upon Christ. For faith is not
our savior. Faith is simply an attitude of the
soul, through which Jesus saves. When Satan
cannot beguile us in any other way he gets us
to scrutinizing our faith, instead of looking unto
Christ. That man has the strongest heart who
is the least conscious of its existence. And that

FAITH. IIS

faith is the strongest which pays no attention to
itself. You may weaken the heart by centering
your anxious attention upon it. So nothing will
quicker weaken faith than the constant endeavor
to discover it. It is like the child's digging up of
seed to see if it is growing. It is a curiosity
which brings disaster to the seed. It is not a
man's faith, but his faith in Christ which saves
him. To be looking unto Christ is faith. To be
looking unto anything else, even unto faith, is a
trouble to the soul.

And is not this the deep and real significance
of our Lord's comparison of faith with the mus-
tard seed? When He tells us of the power that
would come to us if we "have faith as a grain of
mustard seed," what does he mean? Surely not
that we are to have only a little faith. For He
always rebukes "little faith." But rather He
is saying this : "Hold or regard your faith as
you regard, and look upon the grain of mustard
seed." And how is that? Why does Christ
choose so trifling a symbol of faith as the mus-
tard seed? Because He is contrasting faith and
God. The emphasis of His teaching here is not
on the "have faith." but on "have faith in God/'
lie is not turning our eyes toward faith. He is
turning our faith toward God. And so nothing
but the tiniest and most insignificant of seeds
could symbolize the utter littleness, yea nothing-
ness of faith, as compared with the omnipotent
God who works through our faith. But how

ii6 LIFE TALKS.

else is faith like the mustard seed? Plainly in
this. That each, however insignificant in itself,
is the channel of life through which flows the
life of God. The wonder of faith, and the won-
der of the mustard seed is the same. It is that
though nothing in themselves God can, and does,
work through them.

Therefore do not worry about your faith. Do
not always be scanning it. Look away from it
altogether — unto Jesus. For faith alone is
naught. It is only faith in Jesus that counts.
Take care that you are depending upon Jesus to
save. And faith will take care of itself.

* * * *

Paith is not clinging — it is letting Go.

Somewhere we have read a story like this. A
traveler upon a lonely road was set upon by
bandits and robbed him of his all. They then
led him into the depths of the forest. There, in
the darkness, they tied a rope to the limb of a
great tree, and bade him catch hold of the end
of it. Swinging him out into the blackness of
surrounding space, they told him he was hanging
over the brink of a giddy precipice. The mo-
ment he let go he would be dashed to pieces on
the rocks below. And then they left him. His
soul was filled with horror at the awful doom
impending. He clutched despairingly the end of
the swaying rope. But each dreadful moment
only made his fate more sure. His strength

FAITH. 117

steadily failed. At last he could hold on no
longer. The end had come. His clenched fingers
relaxed their convulsive grip. He fell — six inches
— to the solid earth at his feet! It was only a
ruse of the robbers to gain time in escaping. And
when he let go it was not to death, but to the
safety which had been waiting him through all his
time of terror.

Friend, clutching will not save you. It is only
Satan's trick to keep you from beiiig saved. And
all the while is your heart not full of fear? Let
go! That is God's plan to save you. 'And
will I not fall to death ?" you say. Nay. Under-
neath is — Jesus! He is the Rock of your salva-
tion. And when in sheer helplessness you let
go, and fall upon Him fear goes, and death goes,
and safety comes forever. For He^not your
clinging, but — He shall save His people from
their sins."

Faith is not trying — it is ceasing.

A drowning boy was struggling in the water.
On shore stood his mother in an agony of fright
and grief. By her side stood a strong man
seemingly indifferent to the boy's fate. Again
and again did the suffering mother appeal to him
to save her boy. But he made no move. By and
by the desperate struggles of the boy began to
abate. He was losing strength. Presently he
arose to the surface, weak and helpless. At once

ii8 LIFE TALKS.

the strong man leaped into the stream and
brought the boy in safety to the shore. "Why
did you not save my boy sooner?" cried the now
grateful mother. "Madam, I could not save your
boy so long as he struggled. He would have
dragged us both to certain death. But when he
grew weak, and ceased to struggle, then it was
easy to save him."

To struggle to save ourselves is simply to
hinder Christ from saving us. To come to the
place of faith we must pass from the place of
effort to the place of accepted helplessness. Our
very efforts to save ourselves turn us aside from
that attitude of helpless dependence upon Christ
which is the one attitude we need to take in order
that He may save us. It is only when we "cease
from our own works" and depend thus helplessly
upon Him that we realize how perfectly able He
is to save without any aid from us.

^ 'K 't* ^

Faith is not doing — it is resting.

When work is ended then comes rest. So is
it with the work of redemption. Jesus has fin-
ished that work. He has borne our sins. He
has died in our place. Therefore on Calvary He
cried out, "It is finished." And it is ours now
to rest, for the work is done. "Rest in the
Lord," is the word for us. But what does a man
do when he rests? He does not do anything.

FATTTT. 119

He quits doing. He throws his weary body on a
chair, a couch, a bed, and lets that hold him. He
ceases all trying to hold himself. And so what do
you do when you rest in Christ for salvation?
You do not do anything. You throw yourself,
your weight, on Christ and let Him do. You
simply — rest. For while you are trying you are not
resting. And when you begin to rest, you cease try-
ing. Wherefore "we which have believed do enter
into rest." And the man who believes in Christ
does indeed rest in Him for the salvation of his
soul.

* * * *
Faith is not feeling — it is taking God's zuord.

In a gospel meeting a penitent woman was
seeking salvation. The evangelist quoted to her
anxious soul those precious words of Isaiah 53:
6, "The Lord hath laid on Him (Christ) the
iniquity of us all/' He showed her that though
she was a sinner and had gone astray like a lost
sheep, yet God's word clearly stated that all her
sins had been laid upon Jesus Christ. ''The Lord"
had done this apart from any feeling or emotion
of hers. All she need do was to take God's word
and depend upon Christ for this remission of sin.
She seemingly did so, and went home rejoicing.
The next morning she came downstairs with tears
in her eyes. The old burden of anxiety for sins
had come back. Her little boy, who had been with

120 LIFE TALKS.

her in the meeting the night before, noticed her
grief. "Mamma, what is troubHng you?" "Oh,
last night I felt I was saved. But this morning it
all seems Hke a dream. I fear I am deceived."
"Mamma," said the little lad, "get your Bible and
turn to Isaiah 53 : 6." And she did so, and read
"The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us
all." "Mamma, is the verse still there?" "Yes,
my son." "Then your sins are still on Jesus,"
said the wise lad. The mother saw the truth.
She took God's word, without regard to her feel-
ings. And then God's peace came to stay.

Friend, your salvation rests not upon your
changeable feelings, but upon God's unchangeable
fact. The fact of God is that Christ has borne
your sins, and has died in your place. No feeling
of yours, whether of joy or grief, exultation or
despondency, peace or distress, can possibly affect
that great fact. Therefore let not one fragment
of your faith hinge upon your own moods, or
emotions. But let it rest implicitly in God's word.
For in that it will find perfect peace. And it will
find it in that alone.

. .The day you turn your face from sin to God:
the day you look away from your own works,
your own feelings, even your own faith — unto
Jesus' the day you cease clinging, struggling and
trying: the day you see that faith is simply de-
pending upon Jesus as a bankrupt debtor depends

FAITH.

121

Upon his endorser- the day you begin to so depend
upon and confess Christ as your Savior' that day
God zvill save your soul, and through that self-
same simple faith will make you — a son of god.

"The Three-fold Secret," a companion volume by the
same author, sent to any address on application, upon
the same condition as "Life Talks."

Leaflets by the Same JIutbott

"A Comforting Truth''

"Beueving Is Seeing"

"Faith"

"Give God a Chance"

"Practice of Prayer'"

"Prayer"

"Prayer and Heaung"

"Safety"

"Surrender"

"The God-Pi,anned Liee''

"The Spirit-Fii.i,ed Life"

"The YieivDEd Life"

Ipass lit Hlona

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