Frankfort Pilgrim College - Pilgrim Yearbook (Frankfort, IN)

Page 102 text:

WIP CEIPHIHH 3 Q E 0 Sf Literary 2. 3 PERFECTION-AN EXHORTATION E CConti.nuedJ This old world is already condemned by sin, already under the throes of a K9 smitten conscience, already suffering the pangs caused by being away from 3 Q God and out of communion and harmony with Him. Why doesn't somebody Ci run with a cry of sympathy, with a voice of love, with the hands of helpful- f, ness, with brains to think and act? I want you to know when I saw two of 't 1. the boys quit the game, quit their own pleasures, lay aside their own dc- fi lights, turn away from their comrades, and come one on either side to support. R J their stricken friend and finally taking him up in their hands and carrying him to their room, that I didn't hear one wo1'd of, You ought to have been C' ashamed of yourself, or Good enough for you, or Well, you ought to suffer for the way you have done. I didn't hear an exclamation of that kind. VVhat am I talking about 0? I am talking Christian perfection, the per- Q fection of divine love, about what Jesus Christ will do when the heart is Ci made new and His presence in the heart is unhindered and what He will cause QQ you to do. And yet, so often right in the so-called church of Jesus Christ, we see little of the manifestation of the unity and oneness that there should I 1 , be. For the church folks too often say, Good enough for him, he deserved 3 it. It should have come harderfl I do not believe what he said, or 'KI won't have any thing to do with him. You hear those things thrown out on every side. The other fellow hears it and he wonders at such exclamations, Q9 and the barrier is thrown up and division comes in, and then we go out Q Q without ever making it right or fixing it up, and we tell the world, This is our Q Christianity, come and serve God,', but we drive them from God by such me practices. We talk about a world that is dying for love, dying for sympathy. -'QU 3 Then as we testify to the goodness of God. to us, we let that neighbor see gossip, 'Q baekbiting and lack of confidence and when he wants a penny's worth of bread, we have nothing to spare of the bread of life! If I get a glimpse of myself, if I see myself, if I am made to know myself, then I can get away J from it, but if I don 't see myself, I may go on and o11 indefinitely without ever C5 getting away from it and be lost and cause my neighbors to be lost. J And then another thing that God meant is that He wanted to assist us in our communion with Himself. There is one thing beautiful above everything else and,that is to feel something warming the heart as we hear our brothers ---- EJ and sisters talk to one another about Christ and see their spirits lift, with the Q9 Q love of Hod in their souls, Godward and toward one another. I too feel some- P P thing burn in my soul and I love to have it like it was with the disciples when they walked down with Christ through the country when they said, t'Did i not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us? If I can just get my gf brothers and sisters to talk the talk in my presence that which will burn on my heart, l like to have them around. I think they are the finest folks in the C9 world. But when they want to tell me the faults of my neighbors, when they X3 want to make me a dumping grounds for trash, it doesn't make my heart burn in unity with them nor in sympathy with my fellow man, nor doesn't make me want to pour out my heart and faultfinding and pretence. They that feared the Lord spake often one to another. I am con- Q9 55 vineed to the depths of my soul that all around there are souls who are hun- E3 gry and souls who are thirsty and souls who arc longing and crying to hear somebody talk out of a heart full of love for God, of the things of God. That is what the old prophet meant when he said that they who loved the Lord W2 -Snif-

Page 101 text:

51112 fflvww fx F 1 0 L1terary PERFECTION-AN EXHORTATION CContinuedj to you, Be perfect l You are dealing with His will and with what He com- mands. It is what God says, that we want and He says that He wants you to be perfect. You and I have to measure up to and meet the demands of His will. There is 110 other way at hand. VVe had just as well face the question and then we had just as well put it into practice. I dontt care if man's practices have put it away down to a low standard and they say, 4'This is the way, walk ye in it. Notwithstanding God in some sense is demanding something here that is like Himself, at least in some measure, and God wants you to be like Himself in the degree and measure and manner and in the thing he has put down here as perfection. God will never be satisfid with you if you fall short. He may be content with you in a measure of time while you arc making the effort, while you are trying to reach the plane, but even then you may hear the word, even before you are ready, You have camped at this place long enough, you have stopped with this attainment long enough, go on to perfection. I don 't like to think that we are to go on and on and never get anywhere. I don't like that a bit more than I would like to be asked to sit down to a good dinner and the people say, Try to make out your dinner, and me sit there and not eat a thing. I don't like the idea of all the time reaching out for a thing and never getting it. God means for you and me to be perfect. He has a reason why He wants us to be like that. He wants us to know Why. When I hear Jesus out there on His face before the Father making the plea and the cry that they, his people may be one, even as the Father and He are one, I begin to sec that God wants us to be like Himself so thatwe will be in perfect unity and unison with Himself and His true children. That is what God is after. He wants his church to be in unison with Himself. He wants them to be one with Himself and with His Son. He wants them to be in harmonious unity, without friction. Oh, if the saved person could only get things fixed up and oiled up so that he could get along without trouble or friction and a lot of things that a1'e continually dc- stroying the unity of a soul with its God: and in the church, if We could have the thing running and moving nicely without the friction that is thrown in that is destroying the unity with one another! Just think of it. There is where our great trouble lies! Our trouble is but little with the outside world. Do you know that one of the great objects of the Holy Ghost is to baptize the church into one body, is to baptize its several members into one body, and how per- fect is that oneness that comes by that baptism. It is so perfect that the eye cannot get along without the hand. the hand without the foot, and the foot without every other member of the body, and that when any member is injured the other parts immediately do those things which would make the other member whole. Is that the way things are Working? Is that the kind of spirit we find manifest about us? It should be that way. Some boys were out playing yesterday, I was standing near by. All at once one of the boys sprained his ankle. I turned at his ery. There was pain in his voice and I saw that his hands Were on the wounded part doing every- thing they could do by rubbing to ease the pain, the mind was lost. in the act of helping thc suffering member. Oh, he couldn't keep his hands back from it! There was a oneness of purpose, of sympathy, of action, the hands busy trying to relieve, the voice crying with pain that made known the need and was crying to everything about for help to relieve the suffering.

Page 103 text:

Uhv 5519211115 - l 0 Llterary PERFECTION-AN EXHORTATION CContinuedj spake about the things of God. Some one this morning said in a prayer, f'Lord, we love Thee for bringing us into touch with that soul that said they were so hungry for somebody to speak to them about Christ and about salvation, about holiness, about God and the things of Godf' Why then do people not talk more of salvation Elllfl holiness. We are afraid of the customs of the world, so we talk to them about business, about education about science, about money, finances, rocks, everything else more than we do about God. And yet God is greater than all things, the loveliest and best of all, and we say so little about Him. If we were full of God, full of the Holy Ghost, perfected in love, we would talk more about Him and less about things. I often think of the picture, after God created man, of' God and Adam in the garden. When we read the passage it looks like God just longed to get down into the garden. His very heart was moved to get down there with Adam. It was the delight of His heart to walk up and down in the cool of the day-God, there with His creation. Adam communing together. The world likes to talk of their admiration of God and his plans and pur- poses and ways and the things of God. God doesn't want our admiration. Do you know that? What is he wanting? He is wanting our adoration, our fel- lowship. The veriest sinner can admire God, but it takes a holy man or wo- man to really adore him. We are falling away down because we are relegating everything to admiration. God said that they who would worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth and if you will be a worshiper of God you have to get where you can worship Him in spirit. Your deadness, coolness and formality will never do. God despises your luke-warmness as much as He hates sin. He com- mands you to repent of it. Oh, how He is longing to come down these days to commune with folks, actually to talk to folks, speak to their hearts, to live where He can continual- ly commune with His people! But we are getting so far away from Him these days that when some one declares that God has spoken to His heart, people are actually wondering what he can mean. I declare to you that there has not been a time since God regenerated me up to the present time but what I could get on my knees, look up into the face of the Almighty and get a response back to my soul and know what God was saying, even about some of the most difficult things. I expect to get His word on some things. I want to know God now. Some folks go so far as to ask all sorts of questions about how God can talk and how you can understand Him. They don't know the voice of God to their own soul. They are living away down when they ought to live away up. Praise the Lord! My sheep know my voieef' and it is a trick of the devil to deafen people to the voice of God and make you listen to somebody's voice, to get you to turn from the things that God wants. God says that he wants you to be perfect. but it is the work of the devli to get you to listen to every other voice, even the voice sometimes of carnality, to keep you from being perfect in order to love God. George Fox wanted to be made perfect in love. to be sanctified wholly, to be filled with the Holy Ghost and so he went to one of the best preachers, so-called, in southern England and when he told the preacher what was on his heart and how he felt, the man said, What you need is to go to chewing to-