Frankfort Pilgrim College - Pilgrim Yearbook (Frankfort, IN)

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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-

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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-

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WIP Gimme P J S3 E-D CD 9 Q9 S3 Q JZ 69 ci F 4 Z3 lv .53 af 69 Q lv J Ui DZ E9 'B Literary PERFECTION-AN EXHORTATION Q Continued J baccog that will take care of your difficulties, that will satisfy you g' that is the thing for you to do. I remember when an old p1'eacher told me some- thing similar, not to chew tobacco, however. He said, What you need is to go into the world and to get busyf' The devil doesn't care how you are side- t1'acked and what you do so long as you don't go on to perfection and get the real thing. He will let you work your head off to keep you deceived and to keep you from being made perfect in heart. If he can make you think that there is nothing higher than regeneration he will keep you all the time testi- fying to holinss when you know that you have only the first work. One of the most beautiful things in this present world is that the religion of Jesus Christ provides for you to be sanctified wholly. God could not be true to the individual in demanding that he be perfect. if He did not provide for the perfection. VVhen the light breaks on the soul, he will walk in it or walk out into darkness, he will go on and get sanctified wholly or loose his con- nection with God. . The world is just full of old hulks. You have been along the harbors or along the beaches and seen the old hulks of ships. Some of them from the out.- side seem to be in a good state of preservation. VVe still call them ships. A lot of folks are still called Christians, God's children, after they have lost the fire of regeneration. 'The soul that fails to walk in the light goes out into darkness and loses all. ' ' ' ' I was on the shore of Lake Michigan some time ago and went over to an old. abandoned harbor and was looking over the wreckage. I passed by a beau- tiful, little launch and said, Isn't that pretty, suppose we get in and take a ride. The old fisherman who was with me just laughed. I said, That looks like a beautiful little vessel and there is no doubt but that many a time it has -gone' out' yonder on 'its' trips and that engine has just simply driven it right straight through the waves and brought it back again with its load of fish. The old man admitted that it was all true, Well, why not take another trip with it?', Just look insidef' I walked up and stepped on the edge and looked in and the engine was all rusty and useless. You couldn't do a thing with it. I said, We'll just put it in the water and float with it, but, no, the cork is even gone out of the hull and it will leak water like a riddle. 'What fi symbol of folks all over this country, still claiming to have the grace ofiflod, still claiming to be saved and even perfected in grace, but they are justgis helpless and powerless and lifeless and dead as that vessel. One time it went out yonder, it cut its way through 'the cruelest waves and the billows would toss and throw the waters over its deck because of the power that was within. but now. ' Many a soul is just lacking in the real Spit-it and presence of God, but outwardly they are just the same as that hulk on the beach. I said, That is a fine vessel, let's put it in the water. ,These persons' are of no more use in the service of God when it comes to spiritual things than that old 'hulk was of use in the fishing in Lake Michigan. You can see the dry- ness and deaness and powerlessness, no Spirit of Christ, worldliness in conver- sation and everything else,-evidence that there is no longer life and power and victory. They have actually come to the place where there is no divine life in their souls. They are depending upon the forms and the power and life of other days, but they are like the old hulk.