INCIDENTS OF GOSPEL WORK
or
by
Charles Stanley
Chapter 12
Help from a life’s experience.
Study of the Epistle to the Romans.
Love alone not enough.
What God is and what He has done.
Dependence on the Holy Spirit.
Deliverance.
Searching the scriptures as to the Second Coming of Christ.
I will now seek to give a little help from a life’s
experience, to those who desire to be the servants of Christ; and more as to
how God has opened to my own soul the scriptures of truth.
I have already stated how I was led to study the epistle of
Romans. This was not the work of a few months, but of a life—ever finding how
little I knew of that wonderful epistle of foundation truth. The result of
those meditations has lately been published, at the request of a fellow
labourer. Nothing short of the revelation of the righteousness of God in
justifying the sinner can sustain the soul, either in passing through the
storms of temptation, of the world, the flesh, and the devil; or in faithfully
preaching the gospel to others. I would then strongly press the prayerful study
of the Romans on all young preachers of the gospel, as to the basis, and
revelation, of the righteousness of God.
It is no doubt very blessed to preach the love of God, but this alone you will find will neither
sustain your own soul in peace, nor prove lasting good news to your converts. A
mother’s love is very precious; but if a daughter has fallen into sin, and in
disgrace had had to flee her country, when walking the streets of some far off
city in the wretchedness of sin, will the remembrance of that mother’s tears
and undying love make her happy? Far from it. But go and tell that fallen one
that her mother’s love has found a way of restoring her to her home and a mother’s
heart, with all her sin and shame gone for ever, to be remembered no more—this
will be glad tidings to that broken heart. Oh tell first how the Shepherd had
died for the sheep; then tell how the Holy Ghost had come to seek and to find
the lost; then tell how the Father has His own joy in receiving that lost
prodigal. Yes, if God has so loved this world, it was to give His Son to be
lifted up.
Ever keep God revealed in Christ before you. It was not man reconciling
himself to God, but God reconciling the world to Himself. The gospel is what
God is, and what He has done, in sending His Son to die for us and to rise
again. Like the daughter far off from her mother in the wretchedness of sin; so
we were far, oh how far from God, in the untold wretchedness of sin. And what
has God done to redeem us to Himself! Yes! sing, oh ye heavens, for the Lord
hath done it!
Another thing I would press, unfeigned dependence on the
Holy Ghost, whether as to a holy life or preaching the gospel. As to the
former, we must learn that “in me, that is my flesh, there dwelleth no good
thing.” Oh how distressing this lesson is to most of us! To find every hope of
improvement in the flesh end in failure. To long to do the will of God, and yet
in an unexpected moment to fail. To discover the desperate wickedness of the
human heart. Yes, self must be utterly set aside, and Christ be all. To cry
out, with Hezekiah, “O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me.” And then with
deep untold joy of heart, to be able to say, “What shall I say? He hath both
spoken unto me, and Himself hath done it.” (Isaiah xxxviii. 14, 15) Or with one
under law, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of
this death? I thank God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. Vii. 24, 25) It
may be years from now before we really learn the riches of His grace, and the
depths of His mercy. When He first called us, we did not know, but He did know
all that we were, and all that we should do; and He did undertake for us, and
He hath done it! All our iniquities were laid on Him. God has done it in
sending “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh , that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” The way of deliverance is
made clear in this way: We learn that the old “I,” my old self, has been utterly judged and condemned in the holy
Person of my Substitute. All that I am is judged and put out of the sight of
God, not reckoned now to or as me. The Holy Ghost makes this truly known in the
soul. I am now of the same mind and judgment with God as to the flesh, that is,
as to myself, as a child of Adam. I therefore give up all hope of walking in
the flesh. I give up my old self as utterly bad.
What then! Is this that I a may walk in sin, or in the
flesh? No! But walk in the Spirit. Thus it is the “law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” If walking in
the flesh, and seeking as in that condition to keep the commandments, I am just
liable to fall into the deepest wickedness in breaking them; for I should find
the law of sin in my members too much for me. But if all is given up as bad and
lost, and without strength to be better, the new law of the Spirit of life
takes the entire place of self. Then, oh how blessed, to enjoy the delivering
liberty of the Spirit of life.
Now sometimes this deliverance may be learnt at conversion;
but this is rarely the case when God calls us in childhood. In times of
weakness and temptation we learn “to esteem others better that ourselves.” And,
oh, how we learn the riches of His grace! Bur it will be when we know as we are
known, that we shall fully have learned to say, “Worthy alone art thou, O Lamb
of God.” It is here also we learn our need of the all-sufficient priesthood of
Christ to help us in every time of need, and His advocacy to restore us when we
fail. Sad it will be in our experience if we neglect the reading of the word.
We need the constant washing, not again of the blood of Jesus, but the washing
of the word. The mark of a soul not in darkness, but a walking in the light, is
“that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Without
this light to the soul, there is no power for a holy walk.
For a holy walk, then, there must be entire dependence on
the Holy Spirit: not less so in preaching the word to others. Having been
actively engaged in business, I have often had to go from a hard day’s work of
commercial traveling, or manufacturing cares and difficulties, with only time
just to look to the Lord in prayer, sometimes not knowing, up to the last
moment, what portion of scripture to take. Yet I can say, for the encouragement
of others, those have often been my happiest times of freshness of soul, and
sense of His presence, without which all preaching is utterly in vain. I can
say, with one now gone to his rest, “It is far the happiest way never to allow
the thought that you are going to preach from such a passage of scripture.
Study the scripture for your own soul’s need and profit, but in no bondage of
preparation for preaching. Then either speak from that or any other portion, as
the Spirit may direct you.
It is also most important that the servant of Christ should
search the scriptures as to the second coming of the Lord Jesus. The apostle
Paul had this blessed hope always before him; indeed, without it the gospel is
incomplete. The effect of his preaching was to turn men to God to wait for the
Son from heaven. There is no doubt this blessed hope gives a new turn, and a
fresh colour, to every thought in your heart. Like many more, after discovering
the teaching of the Millerites to be very carnal and earthly, I was let to
search the scriptures apart form all human books or opinions; and was greatly
struck with the fact, that the truth as revealed to me in word, was exactly the
same as made known to so many others in different parts of the world, unknown
to one another at the time. For it is remarkable in how many places, and by
what a variety of means, Christians were led to the same blessed expectation of
the Lord Jesus, to take His church before the tribulations coming on this
earth.
In one place I visited, a little boy, eight years of age,
had read a verse of scripture which spoke of the dead in Christ, that they
should rise first when Jesus came. The child could not find it again, and
begged his parents to seek for it. They knew nothing of such a thought; but
they searched the scriptures until they not only found 1 Thessalonians iv.
14-18, but also they became first interested, and then well informed, on the
subject of the second coming of Christ. And many others came to hear, and hold
fast the blessed hope. I believe thousands were thus taught by the Spirit in
the word; and then, when they came to know each other, they found their views
exactly the same. And, above all, these were not wild speculations, but the
Person and coming of the Lord Himself, as the object of immediate hope. Where
truth of the Lord’s coming was received direct from the scriptures, it
invariably had a separating effect. It was, as many said, like a second
conversion.
Further, it is all the more needful now to search the scriptures, and not merely read books, and many are little more than the wandering of the human mind. I could easily mane such, but I prefer saying, Search the scriptures. The tracts I wrote on that blessed subject are just as I wrote them long years ago—just the result of reading the word. If any reader would like to have simply a reference to the scriptures on the subject of the coming of the Lord, he would find the halfpenny little book, called the Diagram Tract, helpful for that purpose; but I beg of him to search those scriptures in the fear of the Lord.