WRITINGS
Full Assurance
A
series of messages for the anxious soul.
PART ONE
I.
STRIVINGS AFTER ASSURANCE
In a ministry of almost half a century, I
have had the of leading many to rest in Christ. And I have found that the
questions that perplex, and the hindrances to full assurance are all more or
less basically alike, though expressed differently by different people. So I
sought in this little volume to set forth, as clearly as I know how, the truths
that I have proven specific in meeting the needs of thousands of
souls.
I have been told that in days gone by young doctors in the habit
of using a great number of medicines in their endeavours to help their various
patients, but that with increasing practice and larger experience, they
discarded many remedies which they found were of little use and thereafter
concentrated on a few that they had proven to be really worth while.
The physician of souls is likely to have much the same experience, and
while this may give a somewhat uninteresting sameness to his later
ministrations, as compared or irasted with his earlier ones, it puts him after
all in the immediate succession of the apostles of our Lord, whose may be
summed up in words written by the greatest of them all: "I determined not to
know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Here is the
sovereign remedy for all spiritual ills. Here is the supreme message that is
needed, whether they realize it or not, by all men everywhere. And this I have
tried to proclaim in these unpretending pages.
As an Itinerant Preacher
For the most of my life I have been an itinerant preacher of the gospel,
travelling often as much as thirty to forty thousand miles a year to proclaim
the unsearchable riches of Christ. In all these years I only recall two
occasions on which I have missed my trains. One was by becoming confused
between what is known as daylight saving and standard time. The other was
through the passive assurance of a farmer-host, who was to drive me from his
country home into the town of Lowry, Minnesota, in time for me to take an
afternoon train for Winnipeg, on which I had a Pullman reservation. I can
remember yet how I urged my friend to get on the way, but he pottered about
with all kinds of inconsequential chores, insistent that there was plenty of
time. I fumed and fretted to no purpose: He was calmly adamant.
Finally, he hitched up his team and we started across the prairie. About a mile
from town we saw the train steam into the station, pause a few moments, and
depart for the north. There was nothing to do but wait some five or six hours
for the night express, on which I had no reservation, and found when it arrived
I could not get a berth, so was obliged to sit in a crowded day coach all the
way to the Canadian border, after which there was more room. While annoyed, I
comforted myself with the words, "And we know that all things. work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his
purpose." I prayed earnestly that if He had some purpose in permitting me to
miss my train and comfortble accommodations, I might not fail to find it
out.
When I boarded the crowded, foul-smelling coach, I found there was
only one vacancy left and that was half seat midway down the car, a sleeping
young man occupying the other half. As I sat down by him and stowed away my
baggage, he awoke, straightened up, and gave me rather sleepy greeting. Soon we
were in an agreeable, low-toned conversation, while other passengers slept and
dozed all about us. A suitable opportunity presenting itself, I enquired, "Do
you know the Lord Jesus Christ?" He sat as though shot. "How strange that you
should ask me that! I went to sleep thinking of Him and wishing I did know Him,
but I do not understand, though I want to. Can you help me?"
Further
conversation elicited the fact that he had been working in a town in southern
Minnesota, where he had been persuaded to attend some revival meetings.
Evidently, the preaching was in power and he became deeply concerned about his
soul. He had even gone forward to the mourners' bench, but though he wept and
prayed over his sins, he came away without finding peace. I knew then why I had
missed my train. This was my Gaza, and though unworthy I was sent of God to be
his Philip. So I to the same scripture that the Ethiopian treasurer had been
reading when Philip met him: Isaiah 53.
Drawing my newly-found friend's
attention to its wonderful depiction of the crucified Saviour, though written
long before the event, I put before him verses 4, 5 and 6: "Surely he hath
borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he
was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of out peace was upon him; and
with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of
us all." As the young man read them, they seemed to burn their way into his
very soul. He saw himself as the, lost sheep that had taken its own way. He saw
Christ as the One on whom Jehovah laid all his iniquity, and he bowed his head
and told Him he would trust Him as his own Saviour. For perhaps two hours we
had hallowed fel!owship on the way, as we turned from one scripture to another.
Then he reached his destination and left, thanking me most profusely for
showing him the way of life. I have never seen him since, but I know I shall
greet him again at the judgment seat of Christ.
Help for the Needy
Soul
Into whose hands this book will fall I cannot tell, but I send it
forth with the prayer that. it may prove as timely a message to many a needy
soul as the talk on the train that night in Minnesota with the young man who
felt his need and had really turned to God, but did not understand the way of
peace and so had no assurance, until he found it through the written Word,
borne borne to his soul in the power of the Holy Spirit.
If you are
just as troubled as that young man, and should divine providence peruse, this
treatise at any time, I trust that you will see that it is the Lord's own way
of seeking to draw you to Himself, and that you will read carefully,
thoughtfully, and prayerfully, looking up each passage referred to in your own
Bible, if you have cne, that thus you, too, may obtain full
assurance.
Be certain of this: God is deeply concerned about you. He
longs to give you the knowledge of His salvation. It is here no accident that
these pages have come to your attention. He put it on my heart to write them.
He would have you read them. They may prove to be His own message to your
troubled soul. God's ways are varied. "He worketh things after the counsel of
his own will."
The Barber Was Much Concerned
Another personal
experience will perhaps accentuate and fittingly close this chapter. One
afternoon I was walking a busy streets of Indianapolis, looking for a barber
shop. Entering the first one I saw (my attention being attracted by the red and
white striped pole), I was soon seated in the chair, and the tonsorial artist
began operations. He was chatty but subdued, I thought, not carelessly voluble.
Praying for an opening, it soon seemed a fitting time to ask, In the other
case, "Are you acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ?" To my astonishment, the
barber's reaction was remarkable. He stopped his work, burst into
uncontrollable weeping, and when the first paroxysm had passed, exclaimed, "How
strange that you should ask me about Him! In all my life I never had a man ask
me that before. And I have been thinking of Him nearly all the time for the
last three days. What can you tell me about him?" It was my turn to be amazed.
I asked him what had led up to this. He explained that he had gone to see a
picture of the Passion Play, and that it had made an indelible impression on
his mind. He kept asking, "Why did that good Man have to suffer so? Why did God
let Him die like that?" He had never heard the gospel in his life, so I spent
an hour with him opening up the story of the Cross We prayed together and he
declared that all was now plain, and be trusted the Saviour for himself. I had
the joy of knowing, as I left his shop, that the gospel was indeed the dynamic
of God unto salvation to him, an uninstructed Greek barber, who had learned for
the first time that Christ loved him and gave Himself for him.'
To me
it was a singular instance of divine sovereignty. The very idea of the Passion
Play - sinful men endeavouring to portray the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus - was abhorrent to me. But God, who delights not in the death of the
sinner, but desires that all should turn to Him and live, used that very
picture to arouse this man and so make him ready to hear the gospel. And I
could not doubt that He had directed my steps to that particular shop, that I
might have the joy of pointing the anxious barber to the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sin of the world.
That in many similar instances He may
be pleased to own and use these written messages is my earnest desire.
"Sovereign grace o'er sin abounding,
Ransomed souls the tidings tell;
'Tis a deep that knows no sounding,
Who its length and breadth can
tell?
On.its glories, let my soul forever dwell."
End of Chapter
One