Frankfort Pilgrim College - Pilgrim Yearbook (Frankfort, IN)

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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.

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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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.tbihvt 15122111111 5 I if Literary PERFECTION-AN EXHORIATION Eg fConti11uedQ God wants you to be perfect that you might glorify Him. Deadness doesn't glorify God, lifelessness doesn't glorify God any more than sin glori- fies Him. God created Adam in His own image that he might glorify Him. When the life of Christ is within, perfect love and obedience, I declare to you that God will see your good works and be glorified in them. The most of the works being done today in the name of Jesus Christ are not the works of God, but are the works of selfishness, or of pleasure, or of ambition, and that takes in the most ofthe church work, also that is being done t-oday. It is something like this, i'Our church needs a new carpet, the old one is ragged and it doesn't look good to those nice folks when they come and we need to get a new one. ' VVhat is the reason, the motive, the object, the thing back of it? They want their church to look well in the eyes of people. Wlicii God fills the soul with divine life and perfects it, the motive changes and you have thc beauty of holiness, the most beautiful thing in all the world in the eyes of men and Women who now behold the deeds of perfect love. Many a prince has gone from earth to heaven, left the tenement of clay in rags, but he was beau- tiful in spirit and glorious within, a prince of God. He had honored God: Praise the Lord forever! wWhE1l Jesus Christ provides for perfection, how are you going to get around it without turning the provision of Almighty God for your soul?' If God provides for your sanctification, you will go on and get sanctified or turn down the means. ' And 'if you turn 'down the means that 'is provided, you turn down the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is a serious thing when you-get to studying this truth. T ' e r There are'two things God does to bring the sinner to' perfection. One is by regeneration and the other is by sanctiiication. Reformation will never do, never in all the world. How would you like to reform and depend upon your reformation? Or how would you like to depend upon your profession or the ceremonies that so many people have got into andare- depending upon for righteousness? How would you like to depend upon your righteous acts? Your very conscience stands- at the door of such things and drives you back and you know that you are in ungodliness and a depth of'iniquitv. You know that you want your sins aswell as your carnal mind buried under the blood, As long as that conscience is alive, you might get into the verv presence of God, but you would find your conscience haunting and troubling and the ghosts of the past would come up against you and God would not keep them down. ' ' Williani Pitt once said of England, England will extend to the judg- ment. One of his colleagues jumped to his feet and said, 'I thank God for the judgment that England now has, and he was right. William Pitt was wrong. I want to tell you that the deeds of the past. the lack of seeking Christ in the past will 'haunt your conscience unto the very judgment of God. I am glad forthe judgment that comes through the conscience and tells you and me what ought to be. If you are not saved through pardoning grace of Jesus Chirst, your own refusal will haunt you throughout eternity., You need the blood of Jesus Christ on your soul. That is only the first step. VVe must be sanctified Wholly and have that disposition that is unlike God cleansed from our soul and the heart filled with divine love. How do I know? I will give you the test and it is right here in connection with this lesson. I E3 Ei' G3 Q G3 fi Q Qs Q. SCJ EQ ffl E3 Gi' Q4 Q XC, EQ G0 -. 4994.