Northwestern Bible School - Scroll Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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Qontents OUR MISSIONARIES SCENES CLASSES ADMINISTRATION MEDITATION ACTIVITIES PRACTICAL WORK STUDENT LIFE HUMOR

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A ' . IF. B. S. Personal Qonsecration a Qondition oj Success in Spiritual IP:ork W. B. Rii.i:y, Superintendent P ERMIT me to make four plain statements in the presentation of this subject: First of all, personal consecration is THE SOLE CONDITION of success in spiritual work. There arc many other things men might brine to their Master which He could use, but there is absolutely nothing else that our Master demands, for consecration means self-dcvotement. and what more can any man bring to bis Master? Hubert Brooks has called attention to the fact that in the consecration ot the priests, as described in Exodus 29 and Leviticus 8, three things were placed m their hands and waived before God: the fat from around the heart and inwards of the offering, representing the affections of the offerer; the right shoulder, typifying strength and power; and food from the basket, symbol of all goods and possessions Sclf-devotement carries with it all of these. Nothing short of that meets the Divine demand, “Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” We have been trying to get God to accept our fleshly strength. We have been thinking to satisfy Him with an offer of youthful enthusiasm. We have come to His altar with our elaborate and beautiful organizations. We have reminded Hun of our up-to-date activities, and we have come even unto His seat and there plead our cause in the name of numbers. But 11 is answer is. When e come to appeal before me, who hath required this at your hand? Except there be personal con¬ secration. these are all vain oblations; and the calling of assemblies, and even the solemn meeting, are iniquity, not acceptable to God. 1 do not say this to discourage the use of physical energy. John said, I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong. I do not say this to dampen the ardor of any. God’s best men have always been enthusiastic. 1 don’t say tliis to antagonize organization. The church of God could little better afford to dispense with organization than could commercialism dismiss all machinery, 1 don’t say this to decry numbers. A body in motion carries with it a momentum determined not alone by its speed, but by that and its bulk. But I do sa , on the authority of God’s Word that success in Spiritual work is “not by might nor by power, else would the delicate, feeble Paul have failed. Not by the enthusiasm of the flesh, else would Peter have been a power prior to Pentecost, Not by elaborate organization, else bad Judaism remained the religion of the world ; and not by swollen numbers, else had Gideon s 30,000 speedily affected what God took from them that He might turn it over to the better 300. Oh, for the day when God’s adopted children shall learn what His only Begotten Son so well knew, and so clearly expressed in the words, l do nothing of myself. Our iirst business is not to do. Our obligation and our privilege are one and the same, namely— to devote. CONSECRATION INVOLVES SURRENDER You have heard the story of the two strongholds. Fort ii enry on the Ten¬ nessee, and Fort Donaldson on the Cumberland, held for some time by the Con¬ federates. General Grant, with his army fleet of gun boats under Com. Foote,