|
THE
WALK (The Scriptural Emphasis)
In our evangelical and
rightful zeal to bring sinners to the new birth, and to lead the saints on
to fullness of life in Christ by separation, consecration, sanctification,
or whatever special emphasis in our various Christian communities, we
often make too much of our own emphasis and too little of the WALK.
We need to heed the emphasis of the Scriptures: OUR WALK is IN
the SPIRIT.
In the Epistles
the Holy Spirit leads us from regeneration, which is the way into Christ,
on to the WALK with Him. Romans 1-7 begins with the way of justification
and sanctification, then in Chapter 8 it says, “in
order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not
walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”
In Galatians,
following the argument of justification by faith, not by works, Paul says,
“This I say then, walk in the spirit,
and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.”
And later, “If we live (have come alive)
in the Spirit, let us
also walk in the Spirit.”
In Ephesians he
introduces us to our glorious union with the ascended Christ, and then
says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord,
beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are
called;” and later, “Walk
not as other Gentiles walk,” “Walk
in love…walk as children of
light…walk circumspectly.”
In Thessalonians
he rejoices in the saving power of the gospel seen in the lives of the
young converts, and then says, “As ye have
received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so ye would
abound more and more.”
In Colossians he
says, “As ye have therefore received Christ
Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”
John in his
epistle takes us to the very heights when he says we are to “walk
as He walked,” for “as He
is, so are we in the world.” Indeed John does not even
discuss how to be born again or how to abide in Christ, but taking these
for granted, he talks about the walk and life, which is the outcome.
(See also II John and III John)
Walking is a
step-by-step activity. Setting
out to reach our destination, all that we need to consider is the next
step. Christian living is
primarily concerned with the implications of the present moment, not with
the past or future. But we
tend to live in the past and in so doing we avoid the keen challenge of
the immediate moment. As
things arise in our hearts and lives inconsistent with our Christian
testimony, we say, or imply, “well, I know these things are not right,
but I have been born again, I have been cleansed in His blood, I have
received eternal life, Christ lives in me.”
We sidestep around the raw facts of our immediate sinful state by
pleading the blood of Christ. We
dismiss the defectiveness of our present walk.
Thank God we are born again, and have received other impartations
of grace, but let us proceed upon an ongoing dependence in Him, drawing
less from past proofs of His provisions, and more and more from His
present empowering Presence with us. To “WALK WITH JESUS,”
simply means concentrating on the present moment, then the next, then the
next, and the next. At His pace, the Spirit revives us. THIS IS THE WAY
THE WALK TO REVIVAL BEGINS.
The habit of
trivializing our sinful choices brings us up against a formidable
adversary to our Christian WALK. One
of Satan’s favorite deterrents to our forward momentum is false
condemnation. He trips us
into looking back at our past depravity; then into the future at potential
and probable failures. By detouring us into such speculative condemnation
he gets us off track; there he bogs us down with guilt and self-contempt.
“Look at your pride, coldness, sensuality, worldliness, fruitlessness.
You say you were born again? Sanctified? Look at yourself! Face
it, fool, what you have been, believe me, you will be again!”
Satan talks in long-term
generalities, containing indeed an element of truth, but founded on a huge
lie; for God does not look on His children as proud, cold, fruitless, and
contemptible. He sees us in
Christ, being conformed to the image of His Son.
The difference between Satan’s accusations and God’s
convictions is that while Satan uses generalities pointing back to the
past or forward to the future, God sees the past and the future in Christ
and He deals with us in the present.
He deals specifically with whatever at any given instant is
hindering our walk with Him. When we falter with the rising up of some
motion of sin in us, God just points to that.
“There,” He says, “see it? Confess that, just that. Get it
right under the blood and then we will go on.”
So, now we have the
first point in what we call the WALK TO REVIVAL.
We “walk with Jesus.” We
are concerned primarily with the step-by-step life. We live in the present, “Today, today,
today.” as it says
five times in Hebrews 3. In our moment-by-moment, step-by-step
relationship with Him, we are in Jesus and He in us. This walk is
straightforward, uncluttered by rationalizations based on our past
conversion, free from fears of the future.
BROKENNESS
The next feature is BROKENNESS. Brokenness is a
key word, indeed the key word, in the Christian WALK.
It is not a word that comes up a great deal in Scripture, though
more than we think if we consult a concordance; but it comes up enough to
show that it is a picturesque, as well as a true, way of describing the
sinner’s only and constant relationship to his Savior.
We first learn that salvation is only possible for lost men through
a broken Savior: “This is
my body which is broken for you.” “Reproach
hath broken my heart.” In
Gethsemane He had a broken will, and at Calvary a broken fellowship even
with His Father; for the One who is our Substitute and who was made sin
for us had to take upon Himself the proud, unbroken ego of fallen man, and
had to be broken at Calvary in his place.
But believers also have
to be “broken.” We see
our sinful condition before God, we realize the coming judgment and wrath,
we are pointed to the slain Lamb, where we “break” at the foot of the
Cross. The proud,
self-justifying, self-reliant, self-seeking self is undone: a lost sinner
whose only hope is a justifying Savior.
David said it, at the supreme moment of his own total brokenness in
Psalm 51, when the Spirit caused him to comment, “The sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not
despise.”
Here we find a profound
point concerning the way of brokenness, as indeed concerning all
relationships of the Christian life.
It is the most crucial point in this whole way of what we are
calling the WALK TO REVIVAL; the point, as we shall see later, has to be
re-learned by twenty-first-century Christians surrounded by all their
respectability. It is this. All
Christian relationships are two-way.
We are not just isolated units living in a vertical relationship
with an isolated God; we are members of a human family with whom we live
in horizontal relationships, and our obligations are two-way all the time.
We cannot, for instance,
say that we have become righteous before God through faith in Christ, yet
continue unrighteous among men. The
Bible says that would be living a lie.
Equally we cannot say we love God and hate our brother, for the
Bible says, “He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can
he love God whom he hath not seen?”
This comes out particularly in John’s first epistle, where the
two-way fellowship is mentioned in1: 3, two-way righteousness in
3:7, and
two-way love in 4:20.
But now this is true of
the way of brokenness also; there must be repentance and faith.
“The word of faith,” we read in
Romans 10: 8-10, is two-way,
with the heart towards God and with the mouth before man.
Indeed it takes it further and says that to experience in our
hearts and lives the full benefit of our faith, we must express it both
ways, for “with the heart man believes unto
righteousness,” that is to
say, the heart-believer is accounted righteous before God; but it is
“with the mouth” that “confession is made unto
salvation.” That is
to say, we realize in our experience the joyful fact that we are saved.
Confession before man does something in our hearts that heart-faith
alone never does. THIS IS THE
WAY TO REVIVAL.
There are many sincere
believers in churches where they are not taught to witness before men or
to expect assurance of salvation, who truly trust in the mercies of God
through Christ, yet do not even know for sure in their hearts that they
are saved, and have none of the joy of the Lord, because there is no mouth
confession. But when we do
the much more costly thing of telling men that Christ has become our
Savior, something happens in our own hearts.
We know we are saved! Any
soul-winner knows that if a seeker were to say, “Yes, I’ll accept
Christ in secret, but don’t let anybody know,” we would say to him,
“Brother, that’s not a genuine faith or brokenness.
If you really mean business and are really committed as a lost
sinner to the mercies of your Savior, the proof is that you are committed
before men as well as God. If
you don’t confess before men, we may well doubt the genuineness of your
faith and the reality of your salvation.”
So saving faith, the
attitude of brokenness, compels a two-way response, towards God and man,
as does righteousness and love and indeed all the relationships of
Christian living.
Indeed, we can put it
this way: We can liken a man
to a building. It has a
roof
and walls. So also man in his
fallen state has a roof on top of his sins between him and God; and he
also has walls up, between him and his neighbor.
But at salvation, when broken at the Cross, not only does the roof
come off through faith in Christ, but the walls fall down flat, and the
man’s true condition as a sinner saved by grace is confessed before all
men.
But the trouble soon
begins after conversion, and here lies the basic hindrance to the
Christian walk. The WALK TO
REVIVAL is continued brokenness, but brokenness is two-way, and that means
walls kept down as well as the roof off.
But man’s most deep-rooted sin is the subtle sin of pride:
self-esteem and self-respect.
Though hardly realizing
it, while we are careful to keep the roof off between God and ourselves
through repentance and faith, we soon let those walls of respectability
creep up again between our brethren and ourselves.
We don’t mind our brethren knowing about successes in our
Christian living; they can know if we win a soul, if we lead a class, if
we get a prayer answered, if we get good things from the Scriptures,
because we too get a little reflected credit out of those things.
But where we fail, in those many, many areas of our daily lives –
that is different! If God has
to deal with us over our impatience or temper in the home, over dishonesty
in our business, over coldness or other sins, by no means do we easily
bear testimony to our brethren of God’s faithful and gracious dealings
in such areas of failure. Why
not? Just because of pride
and self-esteem, although we would often more conveniently call it
reserve! The fact is we love
the praise of men as well as of God and that is exactly what the
Scriptures say stops the flow of confession before men (John 12: 42,43).
But let us note the
reality in the whole of the Scriptures of the openness of the men of the
Bible. We know of God’s
most intimate dealings with them, their sins and failures every bit as
much as their successes. How
do we know the details of Abraham’s false step with Hagar, of Jacob’s
tricks with Isaac and Esau, of Moses’ private act of disobedience
concerning speaking to the rock? Of Elijah’s flight and God’s secret rebuke, of the
inner
history of Jonah? How did the
disciples know the inside story of Jesus’ temptations to record for us?
It was only because they were all open before their contemporaries.
They lived in the light with each other as with God.
All through history men
have turned to the Psalms in their fears and sorrows and doubts.
Why? Because the
Psalms are the heart experiences of men in fear, and doubt, and guilt, and
soul-hunger, describing how they had felt and how God met them with them.
Why was David’s
confession acceptable to God, and yet Saul’s, for an apparently much
less carnal sin of failing to slaughter all the Amalekites, unacceptable?
Both kings, when faced respectively by the accusing finger of the
prophets Nathan and Samuel, admitted their guilt before God, and said,
“I have sinned” (I Samuel 15:24,and II Samuel 12: 13); but Saul’s
repentance was demonstrated to be insincere because he desired that his
sin be hidden from the people (I Samuel 15: 30), whereas the proof of
David’s utter brokenness was that he told the whole world in Psalm 51
what a sinner he was and that his only hope was in God’s mercy.
Openness before man is the genuine proof of sincerity before God,
even as righteousness before man, and love to man are the genuine proofs
of righteousness before God, and love to God.
Note also that hiding
the truth about ourselves before men, pretending to be better than we
really are, is the supreme sin, which Jesus drove home to the Pharisees.
The sin of hypocrisy was the direct cause of their crucifying Him.
It was not the open harlot or publican, but the religious men who
in pretending to be holy, and to cover their inner condition, sent Jesus
to the cross rather than have the truth about themselves exposed any more.
The first sin judged in
the early church was the sin of hiddenness before men: Ananias and
Sapphira pretending before their brethren that they were making a bigger
surrender than they really were.
And note that in every
healing of the believer recorded in the Scriptures, in every step taken in
the walk of faith, the Scripture shows that the transaction of inner faith
had to be expressed in the spoken word, the faith had to be confessed
before men; it was the clinching act which sealed the faith and committed
the believer. See it in the
lives of all men of faith from Abraham right through to the apostles: what
they had believed in their heart, they declared with the mouth as
something God had said to them which would assuredly come to pass.
So far then we have
learned these two lessons: that this Christian WALK is the simple daily
walking with Jesus, and it is also walking in a two-way brokenness expressed in the heart to God and by the mouth before men. We will see in a moment,
in practical detail, how this works out more fully in the daily life.
CUPS
RUNNING OVER
The first chapter of
John’s first epistle leads us further in this walking. Verse 3 speaks at the beginning of a two-way fellowship,
“that ye also may have fellowship with us,” and “truly our
fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”
Then it goes on in verse 4 to say that he writes to us “that your
joy may be full.” Fullness
of joy is to characterize this daily walk.
Or as David said in Psalm 23, “My cup runneth
over,” not only
full, but also running over! And
this brings us to our third major point:
Walking with Jesus, Brokenness, and now CUPS RUNNING OVER.
We all recognize having
our cup running over as a beautiful description of the abiding presence of
Jesus in the heart: His peace, joy and presence filling us to overflowing.
We can see the clear sparkling water of life welling up within and
flowing over upon the thirsty souls around us through look, and word, and
deed.
How is this overflowing
to be manifested in our WALK with Jesus? We must recognize that “cups
running over” is to be the normal daily experience of the believer
walking with Jesus, not the abnormal or occasional, but the normal,
continuous experience. But
overflow just isn’t so in the lives of most of us.
Those cups running over get pretty mixed; other things besides the
joy of the Lord flow out of us. We
are often much more conscious of emptiness, or dryness, or hardness, or
disturbance, or fear, or worry leaking from us than we are of the fullness
of His presence and His overflowing joy and peace. But His overflowing us
IS THE WAY TO REVIVAL.
What stops that
moment-by-moment flow? The
answer is only one thing – Sin. But
we rarely accept or recognize that. We
have many other more convenient names for those disturbances of heart.
We say it is nerves that cause us to speak impatiently – not sin.
We say it is tiredness that causes us to speak the sharp word at
home – not sin. We say it
is the pressure of work that causes us to lose our peace, get worried, act
or speak hastily – not sin. We
say it is our difficult or hurtful neighbor who causes us resentment or
dislike, or even hate – not
sin. We call it everything
but sin. We go to
psychiatrists or psychologists to get inner problems unraveled –
tension, strain, disquiet, dispeace – but anything that causes the cups
to cease running over is SIN.
What proofs have we of
that statement? What are
“cups running over”? It
is the Spirit witnessing to Jesus in the heart.
He is our peace, joy, life, all, and it is the Spirit’s work
never to cease witnessing to Him within us.
What then can stop the Spirit’s witness?
Can nerves, or tiredness, or pressure of circumstances, or
difficult people? Paul’s
cry was, “Who or what can separate me from the love of God?
Can tribulation or persecution or things present or things to come? No!” he says. Only
one thing separates us from Him – “your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you.”
Thank God, the great
separation has been replaced by reunion with Him at Calvary, but still the
daily incursions of sin in the heart bring about the temporary separation
from the sense of His presence; we all know that.
The cups do not run over.
Now this is an
exceedingly important point. So
many of us have not regarded it as some form of sin if the cups cease to
run over; we have not realized that is why they do not quickly start
running over again. For where sin is seen to be sin and confessed as such,
the blood is also seen to be the blood, praise God, ever cleansing from
all unrighteousness; and where the blood cleanses the Spirit always
witnesses – and the cups run over again.
But the blood never cleanses excuses – sin called by some more
polite name!
CONVICTION,
CONFESSION, CLEANSING
Here then are the three
main points of the Christian WALK, or as we are calling it, the WALK TO
REVIVAL: Walking with Jesus, Brokenness, and Cups Running Over.
But when cups do not run over, which is very often, then what?
Only sin stops the inner witness.
How are we to know what
the sin is? The answer to
that is to be found in reading on in this key chapter of I John 1. Verse 3 has spoken of a two-way fellowship, and verse 4 of a
fullness of joy. Verse 5
surprises us. John says he is
now going to give us the inner truth about Him with whom we walk. Not that He is LOVE, but that “God is
light.”
If it just said, “love”, that would be easy, for we might
escape a too strict facing of sin by saying, “Well, anyhow He loves”,
which is indeed what we too often say.
But this is what John wants us to contemplate … “God is
light.”
What does that mean?
Nothing could be simpler. The
obvious main function of light is to reveal things as they are.
The Scripture themselves say that: “That which maketh manifest is
light….” (Ephesians 5: 13) Light
is very silent, does not push or drive anyone, but is inescapable to any
honest person. You can’t
lie to light. If you hit your
toe against an object in the dark, you may mistakenly say that it is a
table. But when the light is turned on in the room, you can no
longer continue to say that it is a table if it really is a piano.
The light just shows you the lie.
God is light.
Silently, inexorably He shines on us and in us, revealing things as
they are in His sight. Have
you every noticed the pivotal place given, even in salvation, to our
response to light? In John
3,
we are distinctly told, “This is the condemnation, that light is come
into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their
deeds were evil.” Light
silently shows them exactly what they are in God’s holy sight, but they
won’t take it. No, they
will never “come to the
light”: never admit to themselves they are what God says they are. As we
are saved we respond to that light and say about ourselves what God says.
Our eternal destiny is evidenced by whether we love darkness or
come to the light.
Even as this is true
concerning the unsaved and the necessity of their “coming to the
light,” it is also true in I John 1 of the believer and the necessity of
his “walking in the light.” He
also can walk in darkness (verse 6), if he wishes to do so.
That is to say he can refuse to admit, concerning himself, what God
says about him; he can give other and more convenient names to his sins.
Worse still, he can be either a deliberate hypocrite (saying he has
fellowship with Him, but really walking in the darkness), or he can be
self-deceived, not recognizing he is sinning when he says he has no sin (verse
8).
Sin is a revelation.
It is God who graciously shows us sin, even as it is He who shows
us the precious blood shed to cover it.
Sin is only seen to be SIN – against God – when He reveals it;
otherwise sin may just be known as a wrong against a brother, or an
anti-social act, or an inconvenience, or a hereditary tendency, or some
such thing. Indeed that is
often the extent of the message of a “social gospel”, to be rid of sin
as a hindrance to brotherhood, as an impediment to human progress; not as
coming short of the glory of God. GOD
shows us sin. We do not need
to keep looking inside ourselves. Our lives are not to be lived in
introspection or morbid self-examination.
We do not walk with sin,
we walk with Jesus; but, as we walk in childlike faith and fellowship with
Him step by step, moment by moment, then if the cups cease to run over, He
who is light, with whom we are walking, will clearly show us what the sin
is which is hindering, what its real name is in His sight, rather than the
pseudonym, the excusing title, which we are less ashamed to call it. Again, it is so simple.
God does not speak in terms of general condemnation leading to
despair of past or fear of future. He
speaks in simple, specific terms of any actual sin in the present which is
hindering the inner witness of His Spirit.
What do we do then when
He points it out? Well, that
is obvious. I John 1: 9 says,
“If we confess our sins…” The word “confess” is the word
“say” with the preposition “con.”
Three times over in verses 5-10 man has said his own say
(verses 6, 8, 10); but to confess is to say about my sin what God
says about it. “You say
that is sin, Lord; so do I.” That
is confession, of course, with the desire to be rid of the sin and then
actual ceasing to do the thing, or maintain the attitude, or whatever it
is.
Then where there is
confession, we all know there is this word of promise, “If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.” Where
there is the confession, we may say the cleansing is almost automatic.
That light which shines so unchangingly on the sin, shines also on
the blood. “If we walk in
the light, as He is in the light,” says John, “we have fellowship one
with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all
sin.”
When walking in the
light, both sin and the precious blood are seen, one canceling out the
other. It is important to
remember that confession of sin does not deliver by itself.
It is the blood (THE DEATH OF CHRIST) that cleanses, and we must
always pass on from confession to faith and praise for the blood,
believing that the blood alone is what glorifies God and delivers us.
Folks often remain depressed and mournful, asking others to pray
for them after confession of sin, when they ought to pass straight on by
simple faith to the blood ever flowing and cleansing, in the words of the
old hymn:
“The cleansing
blood, I see, I see;
I plunge, and oh, it cleanses me.
It cleanses me, it cleanses me;
Oh praise the Lord, it cleanses me.”
Once again, where the
blood cleanses, the Spirit witnesses, and where the Spirit witnesses, the
cups always run over! So we
are back again where we started – walking with Jesus step by step,
brokenness, and cups running over. When
they stop running over, the cause is always sin. Our
sin is seen as sin in the light of God. As we walk in that light, we
recognize and confess our sins; the blood cleanses, the Spirit witnesses;
and the cups run over again! THIS
IS THE WAY TO REVIVAL.
TESTIMONY
But that is not all.
That is still leaving out the further step, which is too often the
missing link in our evangelical living, the very link that releases
revival in our hearts and others. Remember again that saving faith, the first act of
brokenness, is a two-way faith. Remember
that the costly part of that faith was not the heart believing before God,
but the mouth confessing before men.
Remember that, while public confession cost more, it gives us more,
for as we confess before men, it is as Jesus confesses us before God His
Father in heaven, and the Spirit confesses the Savior in our hearts.
The joy of the Lord becomes our strength; we are saved.
Finally we must recognize that horizontal mouth-committal is the
real proof of the genuineness of our heart-committal before God.
Initial brokenness was
roof off, walls down. But how
about in our daily life? Roof
still off, but what about the walls?
Continued brokenness has implicit in it the continued two-way
testimony. What are we to be confessing? The confession that matters in
the Scripture, which is most referred to, is the confession of CHRIST; it
is to the constant confession of Christ that we are called. That is our duty. That
is our privilege. Indeed, the
word confession has become so misused, that it is better and clearer to
use the word testimony. Testimony
to Christ is our duty and privilege.
The first testimony we
made had no reserves about it. We
were sinners and said so. In
many cases our sins were already known in our community, and the liquor or
drug addict, the gambler, the loose-living, the proud, the self-righteous,
the dishonest, gave open glory to God for saving him from these things
through the power of the precious blood.
The emphasis was not on the sin, although that was mentioned, but
on the Savior from sin, on His deliverance.
Such testimony is not a morbid self-revelation, but a glorious
magnification of Christ.
It is that form of daily
testimony that is missing in our present-day Christianity.
We were sinners and were saved.
We gloried in saying so. But
we still so often “come short of the glory of God” in daily life.
We know too well we are still open to the assaults of Satan. The flesh still makes its appeal to us, and we respond,
although our proper position in Christ is “not in the flesh, but in the
Spirit” (Romans 8: 9). Even
we who have entered into a sanctified experience by faith, and who have
the witness of the Spirit making real in our experience such statements as
in Acts 15: 8,9; Galatians 2: 20; Ephesians 2: 6, still know constant
temptation.
Which of us can say that
Satan does not still influence us at times by some subtle form of sin:
unbelief, fear, worry, depression, hardness towards a brother, dislike,
self-pity, pride, coldness of heart, impatience, criticism, unkind
thoughts, the sharp word, jealousy, envy, partiality, hypocrisy, strife,
the lust of the eye, or impure thoughts, sloth, selfishness, and the like?
So now, even as we
entered the way of salvation by a two-way brokenness, we must continue
that way in our daily walk. Something
comes in which stops the flow of the Spirit.
We see it is sin, however “small” we may believe it to be. (Is
any sin small which crucified my Lord?) It is confessed and forgiven. But brokenness is two-way.
There is the testimony to give before men, as God gives the
opening. Nothing need stop me
giving it except that it would hurt my pride, my self-esteem. That is how I glorify God – by testifying, as occasion
arises, to His fresh deliverances, the fresh experiences of the power of
His cleansing blood in my life.
Some would narrow this
down and say, “Should we not merely put a sin right with any against
whom we might have committed it, such as hard words between husband and
wife, and leave it at that?” Certainly
the sin must be put right with those against whom it was committed, but
the testimony to God’s deliverance belongs to the whole Church.
For actually no sin is committed privately. None of us lives unto ourselves.
Our faces, our attitudes, our very atmosphere poison or bless all
those with whom we come in contact. A
quarrel between husband and wife for instance reaches out in its effect
far beyond those two. It
affects the whole household. It
affects visitors in the home, workmates in the business, and above all
fellow-believers in the church. Remember
our confession is not a detailed account of our sin, but an expression of
praise for His deliverance, and an opportunity for others to praise Him
with us.
Daily testimony before
men in this way is an ever-fresh confession of a saving Christ; but to be
honest testimony, it involves some account of what the deliverance is
from. It is that which puts
teeth into the testimony.
It
is also proof of our genuine repentance and genuine brokenness, just as
confession before men at conversion was the proof of the reality of my
newfound faith. To be really wide open before God and man is to be ready at
all times to tell of His dealings with me.
It is yet more that that
– and this is of utmost importance.
Remember the confession of Christ before men made Him real to our
own hearts. It did something
for us, which mere heart-faith did not.
Now it is just the same concerning the daily walk.
Some reasons why we are insensitive to the “little” sins of our
daily walk, and why we pass them over without much concern, are because we
are not ashamed enough by them, or not repentant enough, or even in some
cases not hopeful enough of lasting deliverance from them.
Why?
Because, if we only walk with the roof off and deal in secret with
God about our daily affairs, we have the convenient sense of a God of
great mercy, or a Christ who died for us, and our security in Him, of an
easy-going forgiveness, and so frankly we do not get too concerned about
our present inconsistencies! But
if we start walking in the light with others about the Lord’s daily
dealings with us, telling them when the shadow of sin has darkened our
path and how God has dealt with us over it, we shall suddenly find we have
an altogether new sense of cleansing and liberation from the sin.
We have to face the fact
that we are human, and our human relationships are usually more vivid to
us than our fellowship with God. Thus
we have a more vivid sense of shame about a sin when we tell our brethren,
than when we just tell God. It
is a simple fact that this openness before men does something in us.
It sharpens us up concerning daily sin as never before.
It is part of the secret of the success of this Christian walk.
It is amazing how, when walking in the light with our brethren as
well as with God, we begin to come alive to attitudes, or actions, of sin
in our lives which we never noticed to be sin before, or perhaps we took
for granted would always be part of our make-up.
Beyond this there is
also the effect on others of this open testifying.
We know that the way salvation is spread is by our telling the
unsaved what the Lord has done for us; it does something in their hearts,
quickening a desire for the same experience.
So it is with testimony among God’s people.
The joy and praise leaps from one heart to another when we hear
what the Lord has done. The
more direct, open and exact the testimony, the more we rejoice.
It does yet more. It
convicts. Our hearts are
fashioned alike. The way the
devil tempts you is almost certainly the way he tempts me.
When I hear you tell of the Lord dealing with you down where you
really live in your home relationships, in your business, and so on, it
searches me on some spot where I need the same light and deliverance.
That is exactly how great revivals break out and spread.
The way is always the same. Sin
is suddenly seen to be sin in some life.
Someone breaks down (brokenness), and doesn’t mind who is
present; he only sees himself as a sinner needing renewed cleansing.
So out he comes, maybe with tears; public reconciliations are made;
the conviction spreads, till dozens are doing the same thing.
“Revival has visited this church,” we say with joy.
When there is a
continuous sensitiveness to the smallest sin that stops the cups running
over, when there is recognition of the sin in the light, when there is
confession, forgiveness, and the thankful public testimony to the glory of
God of what the Lord has done, won’t there be a daily revival?
Then we enter into this
Christian walk in the light step by step.
We are made sensitive as never before both to the reality and the
shamefulness of sin. We find
that as we walk brokenly with God and one another, sins that used to beset
us easily lessen in their power and falls are fewer.
Then it suddenly comes to us as light that this special spot of
weakness, taken for granted through the years, can be dealt with and
deliverance found, if recognized as sin to be faced and hated each time it
arises; the emphasis not being so much on a once-for-all crisis
deliverance, but on the daily and immediate dealing with the evil thing
the moment it shows itself. THIS
IS THE WAY TO REVIVAL.
In this walking with one
another in the light, careful distinction must also be made between
temptation and sin. Many
earnest souls continue in bondage and under false accusation because they
are look for the impossible – deliverance from even temptation; and also
because they mistake temptation for sin, and accept condemnation, and a
sense of defilement when they should not do so.
It also makes them
confused about how far to go in open testimony and fellowship. The distinction between the two is clear.
James 1: 14, 15 settles it for us.
Temptation is continuous and will be while we are in this fallen
world. Jesus was tempted in
all points like as we are – “Ye are they that have continued with me
in my temptations.”
Temptation is the
stimulation of our natural desires (the correct meaning of lust in verse
14) whether physical appetites or the faculties of soul or spirit.
Jesus was tempted in all these three realms on the Mount of
Temptation. But the sudden
impulse to think this wrong thought, or say this, or do that, the
attraction of the eye in an unlawful direction, the first motion, of fear,
worry, resentment, and so on is temptation for which we are not held
responsible as willful sin. It
is when we allow the temptation to find lodgment in us, when we continue
the wrong thought, allow the resentment to remain, keep on looking, speak
the hasty work, and so on, that temptation has become sin.
Obviously, therefore, if we withstand the temptation as it arises,
by abiding in Christ, we should not accept condemnation, and our testimony
to His praise should be to His keeping power in the evil day.
Let us also be watchful
to maintain liberty in testimony. How
easily we can slip back to legalism, instead of walking in the glorious
liberty of the sons of God. We
can endeavor to walk by rule, instead of by the gentle but free
compulsions of the Spirit who leads, not drives.
Thus we can get into the bondage of thinking that we are under
strict compulsion to testify to the Lord’s dealings on all or on fixed
occasions. Testimony of this
kind can become as much a set form with one group as absence of any
testimony is a set form with another! We must never allow ourselves to be driven.
We are not mere human imitators, feeling compelled to say something
just because our brother does, or because it is the usual thing on certain
occasions. We “walk
with Jesus” even in the matter of testimony. There is a divine compulsion, when we know from Him within by
inner conviction that we must open our lips, and when we can draw power
from Him to do so; that is quite a different thing from the drive of the
law, or of imitation. Sometimes
the best testimony might be to testify that God has given me nothing to
say! “Stand fast,
therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not
entangled again in the yoke of bondage”.
Equally we must avoid
that subtle pressure on others to see the same as ourselves, and that
subtle criticism of those who do not.
Of course we want others to have any light God has given us; but it
was God who gave it to us in His own time and way.
Let us then, leave it to God to give it to our brethren as He
pleases. Our only job is to
humbly and joyfully testify to what God shows us.
It is impressive in the Gospel of John to see the rest of Jesus
among fierce critics and opponents on the simple basis that people can
only see and receive what God gives them to see.
Thus, this living in
revival, personally and in our community, is the freedom of the Spirit.
It is not a question of forming new sects for fellowships or
cliques that cause divisions in churches and give an “I am holier than
thou” impression. It is
just to live in revival, in the light, in brokenness, in cleansing, in
testimony, just as God leads, in the home, in the church, everywhere.
Brokenness is obedience;
indeed revival is the simple outcome of obedience to the light.
EXHORTATION
There remains one
further stage in this Christian WALK, and a most important one.
We have seen: walking with Jesus step by step; in two-way
brokenness; with cups running over, and when they don’t run over;
walking in the light, letting God show sin as sin; then confession and
cleansing in the blood; and finally, as God gives opportunity, giving
glory to God by testifying to His dealings with sin and to the power of
the blood, bringing liberation to the one who testifies, and joy and often
conviction to the hearts of the hearers.
The one remaining point is MUTUAL EXHORTATION.
The early church was
first and foremost a fellowship. (When
I say “fellowship” I am not referring to food and games, etc.)
They “continued in
the apostle’s doctrine and fellowship.”
They broke bread from house to house.
When they met in worship, it was the very opposite of our present
church services, divided into the two categories of preacher and
preached-to. It was a living
fellowship-in-action.
All took part, and there
was such a flow of the Spirit through the believers that Paul had to write
words of restraint. “How is
it, brethren? When ye come
together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine…” Then he
urged them to orderliness, and said that if while one was giving his word,
another arose with a desire to say something, let the first sit down and
give place to him, for “the spirit of the prophets is subject to the
prophets.” But today we
have to persuade people to say something, if occasionally we do have a
time of open fellowship! Paul
had to persuade them to keep silent and give the other fellow a chance!
We have now replaced fellowshipping by preaching in our modern
church life, and the reason is not hard to find.
Fellowshipping
necessitates a real flow of life in the fellowship, for each to be ready
to contribute his share of what the Lord is really saying to him.
Preaching is an easy way out for a not-too-living fellowship.
Appoint the preacher and let him find the messages; we can sit
still and take or leave what we hear, as we please!
One
example of balance was found in early Methodism, where John Wesley
proposed that in addition to the preaching and teaching meetings, there
must be weekly class meetings strictly for fellowship, and all attending
were required to tell of the Lord’s personal dealings that week, whether
concerning sins, or answers to prayer, or opportunities of witness.
But in the Scriptures it
is also obvious that an important part of this fellowshipping was to be
mutual exhortation, not just public exhortation by a preacher, but one
brother exhorting another. In
Hebrews it distinctly says that the reason for such exhortation is to keep
each other from becoming “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin”
(3:13), in other words, lest cups should cease to run over and we should
not even recognize it. And it
was to be daily exhortation! The
same is said in 10: 24,25, about public gatherings.
The phrase usually quoted as summons to attend weekly preaching
services, “not forsaking the assembling of yourselves
together,” is
actually used, not of preaching, but of mutual exhortation, and “so much
the more, as ye see the day approaching,” In James also we are exhorted
to mutual confession of sin, so that we may pray one for another.
Exhortation allows the
Spirit to have leadership, not some outstanding man. Having accepted this healthy principle of mutual exhortation,
no man or leader is put on some pedestal where he cannot be approached or
questioned. All are brethren
around one Father, and if the very chief among those brethren is seen by
the spirit of discernment to be unwise in leadership or to be off color
spiritually, others will walk in light with him.
In other words, the
standard is that all want to be the best for Jesus, all recognize how
easily deceived we are by Satan and the flesh, so all desire their
brethren to “exhort” them, if things are seen in their walk which are
not “the highest.”
Such exhortations are not easy either to receive or give.
To receive them with
humility and a readiness to be constantly adjusted before God is evidence
of this Christian WALK in the Spirit, for where we are not in the Spirit,
we almost certainly resent such challenges that reveal our self.
To exhort in grace and
faithfulness costs perhaps even more.
We are so easily tempted to “let
well enough alone,” or say, “It is not my business,” and so forth, because
we recognize that to bring such a challenge might disturb the peace, or
disrupt a friendship. But in
the Spirit we see we are our brother’s keeper, not for his sake, but for
Jesus’ sake. When a brother
is not on top spiritually, it hinders the working of the Holy Spirit;
therefore it is part of our duty to Him to be faithful to the brother.
Not to be so is sin.
Of course such
challenging has to be done deeply in the Spirit, that is to say, its
source must be godly concern for the brother in question. The golden rule,
as it applies to challenging, is Matthew 7: 12, “All things whatsoever
ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
FINAL
WORDS ON THE WALK TO REVIVAL
Call it THE WALK TO
REVIVAL or just the Scriptural WALK OF A CHRISTIAN, or whatever you will,
the important thing is that fellowship with others who have formed or are
forming the habit of regularly testifying one to the other of God’s
immediate dealings in their lives will have a profound effect on our peace
and joy in the Lord on a daily basis.
The thrill and the value of such testimonies will generate a
sensitiveness to sin. Then when Satan sows the first seeds in the heart, they are
recognized in God’s light and dealt with.
Whereas in so many of us we let such seeds lie and send down their
roots, until ultimately they bear their evil fruit openly.
One final word about
this WALK. It begins by one
person who sees from God what it is to walk in the light.
But to walk with Jesus like this involves also walking in the light
with one another, horizontally as well as vertically, and that means at
least one other person with whom to walk in open fellowship. It seems that one would naturally start walking like that
with the person nearest to you – husband and wife, brother and sister,
friend and friend. In other
words, this WALK starts with two people being revived, and starts at home.
THIS IS THE WALK TO REVIVAL.
The Spirit will move
through this kind of obedience to Him and to the Word.
When He tells us to “break” and to testify to the light shining
on sin in our lives, and on the blood that cleanses from all sin, then let
us obey, and we will find at once that the Spirit is loosed in revival in
our own hearts, and is moving in revival in the hearts of others.
Let us keep always
before us that we are learning a continuous WALK with God and one another.
Anything can so easily become formal and legalistic.
We are seeking to learn to walk all the time in the two-way
fellowship, in the home, between husband and wife and children; in our
church and social contacts; and in our business life: it is by this means
that the revival may spread among us.
THIS IS THE WALK TO REVIVAL.
The blessed Holy Spirit
can never be systematized.
"The
wind bloweth where it listeth."
He
is always original, and all our fresh springs are in Him. We can, however, at least give humble testimony to this His
way which has been revealed to us in our day, even as Paul told the
Corinthians that he was sending them Timothy to “bring you into
remembrance of my ways which be Christ.”
May the Lord water this seed in hearts, because THIS IS THE WALK TO
REVIVAL.
|
The
Walk