Sanctus Real - Lead Me

Corrie Ten Boom Quotes

"Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open."

"What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the
soul. " 

"This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see." 

"Even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with the command, the love itself."
— Corrie Ten Boom (The Hiding Place)
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/102203.Corrie_Ten_Boom

I dare you to pray this

Proverbs 30:7-9 (English Standard Version)

7Two things I ask of you;
deny them not to me before I die:
8Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9lest I be full and deny you
and say, "Who is the LORD?"
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.

Living Eternally - Francis Chan

Helen Roseveare

http://refocusingoureyes.com/missions/roseveare-interview#more-4671

Dr. Helen Roseveare was an English Christian missionary to the Congo from 1953 to 1973. In 1964, she was taken prisoner by rebel forces and remained a prisoner for five months, during which time she endured brutal beatings and rape.

In her own words:
They found me, dragged me to my feet struck me over head and shoulders, flung me on the ground, kicked me, dragged me to my feet only to strike me again—the sickening searing pain of a broken tooth, a mouth full of sticky blood, my glasses gone. Beyond sense, numb with horror and unknown fear, driven , dragged, pushed back to my own house—yelled at, insulted, cursed…

Through the brutal heartbreaking experience of rape, God met with me – with outstretched arms of love. It was an unbelievable experience: He was so utterly there, so totally understanding, his comfort was so complete – and suddenly I knew – I really knew that his love was unutterably sufficient. He did love me! He did understand!

He understood not only my desperate misery but also my awakened desires and mixed up horror of emotional trauma. I knew that Philippians 4:19, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus,” was true on all levels, not just on a hyper-spiritual shelf where I had tried to relegate it….He was actually offering me the inestimable privilege of sharing in some little way in the fellowship of His sufferings.

The grace that was given her was that she was enabled to thank God for trusting her with such an experience, even if He never explained “why.”
She states:
I have looked back and tried “to count the cost,” but I find it all swallowed up in privilege. The cost suddenly seems very small and transient in the greatness and permanence of the privilege.

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Ezekiel 37:1-14 (English Standard Version)

Ezekiel 37

The Valley of Dry Bones

 ^1(A) The hand of the LORD was upon me, and^(B) he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley;^[a] it was full of bones. ²And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. ³And he said to me,^(C) "Son of man,^(D) can these bones live?" And^(E) I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." ⁴Then he said to me,^(F) "Prophesy over these bones, and say to them,^(G) O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. ⁵Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause^(H) breath^[b] to enter you, and you shall live. ^6(I) And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and^(J) cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD." ⁷So I prophesied^(K) as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold,^(L) a rattling,^[c] and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But^(M) there was no breath in them. ⁹Then he said to me,^(N) "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy,^(O) son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from^(P) the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." ¹⁰So I prophesied^(Q) as he commanded me, and^(R) the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
 ¹¹Then he said to me,^(S) "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried up, and^(T) our hope is lost;^(U) we are indeed cut off.' ¹²Therefore^(V) prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold,^(W) I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And^(X) I will bring you into the land of Israel. ¹³And^(Y) you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴And^(Z) I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD;^(AA) I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD."

Author Interview: 'Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dre...

Francis Chan - Intimacy with God (excerpt)

Francis Chan - Jesus: More Than a Savior

The Leafless Tree

Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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The Leafless Tree

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A Sermon(No.121)
Delivered on Sabbath Evening, March 8, 1857, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
"But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and it shall be eaten as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof."—Isaiah 6:3.
OUR FIRST business to-night will be briefly to explain the metaphor employed in the text. The prophet was told that despite all the remonstrances he was instructed to deliver, and notwithstanding the eloquent earnestness of his lips, which had been just touched by a live coal from off the altar, still the people of Israel would persevere in their sins, and would therefore be certainly destroyed. He asked the question, "Lord, how long?" that is, How long will the people be thus impenitent? How long will thy sore judgment thus continue? And he was informed that God would waste and destroy the cities and their inhabitants, till the land should be utterly desolate. Then it was added, for his comfort, "Yet in it shall be a tenth." And so it happened; for when "Nebuchadnezzar carried away all Jerusalem," the historian gives this reservation—'none remained save the poorer sort of the people of the land." They were left by the captain of the guard, "to be vine-dressers and husbandmen." Thus in it there was a tenth; this small remnant of the people, however, was to be nearly destroyed too. "It shall return and shall be eaten;" the sense is, eaten up or consumed. The poor creatures left in the land, many of them fled into Egypt at the time of the conspiracy of Ishmael (not Ishmael, the son of Hagar, but an unworthy member of the royal family of Judah), and there in Egypt most of them were cut off and perished. "But," says God, "although this tenth only shall be preserved, and then even this small part shall be subjected to many perils yet Israel shall not be destroyed, for it shall be as a terebinth tree and as an oak;" their "substance is in them, when they cast their leaves," and so lose their verdure and their beauty; thus, in like manner, a holy seed, a chosen remnant, shall still be the substance of the children of Israel, when the fruitful land is stripped of its foliage, and that fair garden of earth is barren as the desert.
The figure is taken, first of all, from the terebinth or turpentine tree—here translated the teil tree. That tree is an evergreen, with this exception, that in very severe and inclement weather it loses its leaves; but even then the terebinth tree is not dead. And so of the oak; it loses its leaves every year, of course, but even then it is not dead. "So," says God, "you have seen the tree in winter, standing naked and bare, without any sign of life, its roots buried in the hard and frozen soil, and its naked branches exposed to every blast, without a bloom or a bud; yet the substance is in the tree when the leaves are gone. It is still alive, and it shall, by and by, in due season, bud and bloom; so," says he, "Nebuchadnezzar shall cut off all the leaves of the tree of Israel—take away the inhabitants, only a tenth shall be left, and they shall well nigh be eaten up; still the church of God and the Israel of God never shall be destroyed; they shall be like the terebinth tree and the oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof."
I hope I have made the meaning of the passage as plain as words can make it. Now, then, for the application—first, to the Jews; secondly, to the Church; thirdly, to each believer.
I. First, TO THE JEWS.
What a history is the history of the Jew! He has antiquity stamped upon his forehead. His is a lineage more noble than that of any knights or even kings of this our island, for he can trace his pedigree back to the very loins of Abraham, and through him to that patriarch who entered into the ark, and thence up to Adam himself. Our history is hidden in gloom and darkness; but theirs, with certainty, may be read from the first moment even down till now. And what a checkered history has been the history of the Jewish nation. Nebuchadnezzar seemed to have swept them all away with the huge broom of destruction; the tenth left was again give over to the slaughter; and one would have thought we should have heard no more of Israel; but in a little time they rose phoenix-like, from their ashes. A second temple was builded and the nation became strong once more, and though often swept with desolations in the mean time, yet it did not abide, and the scepter did not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh came. And, since then, how huge have been the waves that have rushed over the Jewish race! The Roman emperor razed the city to the ground, and left not a vestige standing; another emperor changed the name of Jerusalem into that of Eliah, and forbade a Jew to go within some miles of it, so that he might not even look upon his beloved city. It was plowed and left desolate. But is the Jew conquered? Is he a subjugated man? Is his country seized? No; he is still one of earth's nobles—distressed, insulted, spit upon; still it is written, "To the Jew first, and afterward to the Gentile." He claims a high dignity above us, and he has a history to come which will be greater and more splendid than the history of any nation that has yet existed. If we read the Scriptures aright, the Jews have a great deal to do with this world's history. They shall be gathered in; Messiah shall come, the Messiah they are looking for—the same Messiah who came once shall come again—shall come as they expected him to come the first time. They then thought he would come a prince to reign over them, and so he will when he comes again. He will come to be king of the Jews, and to reign over his people most gloriously; for when he comes, Jew and Gentile will have equal privileges, though there shall yet be some distinction afforded to that royal family from whose loins Jesus came; for he shall sit upon the throne of his father David, and unto him shall be gathered all nations. O!
"Ye chosen seed of Israel's race,
A remnant weak and small,"
ye may indeed,
"Hail him who saves you by his grace,
And crown him Lord of all;"
your church shall never die, and your race shall never become extinct. The Lord hath said it. "The race of Abraham shall endure for ever, and his seed as many generations."
But why is it that the Jewish race is preserved? We have our answer in the text: "The holy seed is the substance thereof." There is something within a tree mysterious, hidden, and unknown, which preserves life in it when every thing outward tends to kill it. So in the Jewish race there is a secret element which keeps it alive. We know what it is: it is the "remnant according to the election of grace;" in the worst of ages there has never been a day so black but there was a Hebrew found to hold the lamp of God. There has always been found a Jew who loved Jesus; and though the race now despise the great Redeemer, yet there are not a few of the Hebrew race who still love Jesus, the Saviour of the uncircumcised, and bow before him. It is these few, this holy seed, that are the substance of the nation; and for their sake, through their prayers, because of God's love to them, he still says of Israel to all nations, "Touch not these mine anointed, do my prophets no harm. These are the descendants of Abraham, my friend. I have sworn, and will not repent; I will show kindness unto them for their father's sake, and for the sake of the remnant I have chosen."
Let us think a little more of the Jews than we have been wont; let us pray oftener for them. "Pray for the peace old Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love her." As truly as any great thing is done in this world for Christ's kingdom, the Jews will have more to do with it than any of us have dreamed. So much for the first point. the Jewish nation is like "a terebinth tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof."
II. And now, secondly, THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, whereof the Jewish people are but a dim shadow, and an emblem.
The church has had its trials; trials from without and trials within. It has had days of blood-red persecution, and of fiery trial; it has had times of sad apostacy, when an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God has broken out, and a root of bitterness springing up has troubled many, and thereby they have been defiled. Yet, blessed be God, through all the winters of the church she still lived, and she gives signs now of a sweeter spring-tide, a fresher greenness and a healthier condition than she has shown before for many a day. Why is it that the church is still preserved, when she looks so dead? For this reason: that there is in the midst of her—though many are hypocrites and impostors—a "chosen seed," who are "the substance thereof." You might have looked back a hundred years ago upon the professing church of Christ in this land, and what a sad spectacle it would have exhibited! In the Church of England there was mere formality; in the Independent and Baptist denominations there was truth, but it was dead, cold, lifeless truth. Ministers dreamed on in their pulpits, and hearers snored in their pews; infidelity was triumphant; the house of God was neglected and desecrated. The church was like a tree that had lost its leaves: it was in a wintry state. But did it die? No; there was a holy seed within it. Six young men were expelled from Oxford for praying, reading the Bible, and talking to poor people about Christ; and these six young men, with many others whom the Lord had hidden by fifties in the caves of the earth, secret and unknown—these young men, leaders of a glorious revival, came out, and though ridiculed and laughed at as Methodists, they brought forth a great and glorious revival, almost equaling the commencement of the gospel triumphs under Paul and the apostles, and very little inferior to the great Reformation of Luther, of Calvin, and Zwingle. And just now the church is to a great degree in a barren and lifeless state. But will she therefore die? you say that true doctrine is scarce, that zeal is rare, that there is little life and energy in the pulpit and true devotion in the pew, while formality and hypocrisy stalk over us, and we sleep in our cradles. But will the church die? No; she is like a teil tree and an oak; her substance is in her when she has lost her leaves; there is a holy seed in her still that is the substance thereof. Where these are we know not; some, I doubt not, are here in this church—some, I hope, are to be found in every church of professing Christians: and woe worth the day to the church that loses her holy seed; for she must die, like the oak blasted by the lightning, whose heart is scorched out of it—broken down, because it has no substance in it.
Let me now draw your attention, as a church connected with this place, to this point—that the holy seed is the substance of the church. A great many of you might be compared to the bark to the tree; some of you are like the big limbs; others are like pieces of the trunk. Well, we should be very sorry to lose any of you; but we could afford to do so without any serious damage to the life of the tree. Yet there are some here—God knoweth who they are—who are the substance of the tree. By the word "substance" is meant the life, the inward principle. The inward principle is in the tree, when it has lost its leaves. Now, God discerns some men in this church, I doubt not, who are toward us like the inward principle of the oak; they are the substance of the church. I would feign hope that all the members of the church in some degree contribute to the substance; but I can not think so. I am obliged to say I doubt it; because when one hath fallen and another, it makes us remember that a church hath much in it that is not life. There be some branches on the vine that be cut off, because they do not draw sap from the heart of it, they are only branches bound on by profession, pretended graftings that have never struck root into the parent stock, and that must be cut off, and hewn down, and cast into the fire. But there is a holy seed in the church that is the substance of it.
Please to note here, that the life of a tree is not determined by the shape of the branches, nor by the way it grows, but it is the substance. The shape or a church is not its life. In one place I see a church formed in an Episcopalian shape; in another place I see one formed in a Presbyterian shape; then, again, I see one, like ours, formed on an Independent principle. Here I see one with sixteen ounces to the pound of doctrine; there I see one with eight, and some with very little clear doctrine at all. And yet I find life in all the churches, in some degree—some good men in all of them. How do I account for this? Why, just in this way—that the oak may be alive, whatever its shape, if it has got the substance. If there be but a holy seed in the church, the church will live; and it is astonishing how the church will live under a thousand errors, if there be but the vital principle in it. You will find good men among the denominations that you can not receive as being sound in faith. You say, "What! can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" and you go through, and find that there are even in them some true Nazarites of the right order. The very best of men found in the worst of churches! A church lives not because of its rubrics, and its canons, and its articles; it lives because of the holy seed that is in it as the substance. No church can die while it has a holy seed in it, and no church can live that has not the holy seed, for "the holy seed is the substance thereof."
Observe, again, that the substance of the oak is a hidden thing; you can not see it. When the oak or the terebinth is standing destitute of leaves, you know that life is there somewhere. But you can not see it. And very likely you can not and do not know the men that are the holy seed, the substance of the church. Perhaps you imagine the substance of the church lies in the pulpit. Nay, friend! Let us pray to God that such of us as are in the pulpit may be a part of that substance; but much of the substance of the church lies where you don't know any thing of it. There is a mine near Plymouth, where the men who work in it, two hundred and fifty feet below the surface, have a little shelf for their Bibles and hymn-books, and a little place where every morning, when they go down in the black darkness, they bow before God, and praise him whose tender mercies are over all his works. You never heard of these miners, perhaps, and do not know of them; but perhaps some of them are the very substance of the church. There sits Mr. Somebody in that pew; O! what a support he is to the church. Yes, in money matters, perhaps; but do you know, there is poor old Mrs. Nobody in the aisle that is most likely a greater pillar to the church than he, for she is a holier Christian, one who lives nearer to her God and serves him better, and she is "the substance thereof." Ah! that old woman in the garret who is often in prayer; that old man on his bed who spends days and nights in supplication; such people as these are the substance of the church. O! you may take away your prelates, your orators, and the best and greatest of those who stand among earth's mighty men, and their place could be supplied; but take away our intercessors; take away the men and women that breathe out prayer by night and day, and like the priests of old offer the morning and evening lamb as a perpetual sacrifice, and you kill the church at once. What are the ministers? They are but the arms of the church, and the lips of it. A man may be both dumb and armless, and yet live. But these, the heavenly seed, the chosen men and women who live near their God, and serve him with sacred fervent piety—these are the heart of the church; we can not do without them. If we lose them we must die. "The holy seed is the substance thereof."
Then, my hearers, thou art a church member. Let me ask thee—art thou one of the holy seed? Has thou been begotten again to a lively hope? Has God made thee holy by the sanctifying influence of his Spirit, and by the justifying righteousness of Christ, and by the application to thy conscience of the blood of Jesus? If so, then thou art the substance of the church. They may pass by thee and not notice thee, for thou art little; but the substance is little; the life-germ within the grain of barley is too small for us, perhaps, to detect; the life within the egg is almost an animalcula—you can scarcely see it; and so the life of the church is among the little ones, where we can scarcely find it out. Rejoice, if you are much in prayer; you are the life of the church. But you, O you proud man, pull down your grand thoughts of yourself; you may give to the church, you may speak for the church, and act for the church, but unless you are a holy seed you are not the substance thereof, and it is the substance which is in reality of the greatest value.
But here let me say one thing before I leave this point. Some of you will say, "How is it that good men are the means of preserving the visible church?" I answer, the holy seed doth this, because it derives its life from Christ. If the holy seed had to preserve the church by its own purity and its own strength, the church would go to ruin to-morrow; but it is because these holy ones draw fresh life from Christ continually that they are able to be, as it were, the salvation of the body, and by their influence, direct and indirect, shed life over the whole visible church. The prayers of those living ones in Zion bring down many a blessing upon us; the groans and cries of these earnest intercessors prevail with heaven, and bring down very argosies of mercy from the gates of paradise. And besides, their holy example tends to check us and preserve us in purity; they walk among us like God's own favored ones, wrapped in white, reflecting his image wherever they go, and tending, under God, to the sanctifying of believers, not through their vaunting any self-righteousness, but by stirring up believers to do more for Christ, and to be more like him. "The holy seed shall be the substance thereof."
III. And now I come to the third point. this is true of EVERY INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER: his substance is in him when he has lost his leaves.
The Arminian says that when a Christian loses his leaves he is dead. "No," say God's Word, "he is not; he may look as if he were dead, and not have so much as here and there a leaf upon the topmost bough; but he is not dead. Their substance is in them even when they lose their leaves."
By losing their leaves allow me to understand two things. Christian men lose their leaves when they lose their comforts, when they lose the sensible enjoyment of their Master's presence, and when their full assurance is turned into doubting. You have had many such a time as that, have you not? Ah! you were one day in such a state of joy, that you said you could
"Sit and sing yourself away
To everlasting bliss."
But a wintry state came, and your joy all departed, and you stood like a bare tree, after the wind had swept it in the time of winter, with just perhaps one sere leaf hanging by a thread on the topmost bough. But you were not dead then; no, your substance was in you, when you had lost your leaves. You could not see that substance, and good reason why, because your life was hid with Christ in God; you saw not your signs, but you had your substance still, though you could not discover it. There were no heavings of faith, but faith was there; there were no lookings out of hope, but though hope's eyelids were shut, the eyes were there, to be opened afterwards; there was no lifting, perhaps, of the hand of ardent prayer, but the hands and arms were there, though they hung powerless by the side. God said, afterwards, "Strengthen the feeble knees, and lift up the hands that hang down." Your substance was in you when you had lost your leaves. Good Baxter says—"We do not see graces, except when they are in exercise; and yet they are as much there when they are not in exercise as when they are." Saith he, "Let a man take a walk into a wood; there lieth a hare or a rabbit asleep under the leaves; but he can not see the creature until it is frightened, and it runneth out, and then he seeth it to be there." So if faith be in exercise you will perceive your evidence, but if faith be slumbering and still, you will be led to doubt its existence; and yet it is there all the while.
"Mountains when in darkness hidden,
Are as real as in day,"
said one; and truly the faith of the Christian, when shrouded by doubts and fears, is just as much there as when he rejoiceth devoutly in the display of it.
It is a common error of young converts that they attempt to live by their experience, instead of tracing their life up to its precious source. I have known persons rejoicing in the fullest assurance one day, and sinking into the deepest despondency the next. The Lord will sometimes strip you of the leaves of evidence to teach you to live by faith, as John Kent says—
"If to-day he deigns to bless us
With a sense of pardoned sin;
He to-morrow may distress us
Make us feel the plague within;
All to make us
Sick of self and fond of him."
But, ah! there is a worse phase to the subject than this. Some Christians lose their leaves not by doubts, but by sin. This is a tender topic—one which needs a tender hand to touch. O! there are some in our churches that have lost their leaves by lust and sin. Fair professors once they were; they stood green among the church, like the very leaves of paradise; but in an evil hour they fell, the slaves of temptation. They were God's own people by many infallible marks and signs; and if they were so, though it is grievous that they should have lost their leaves, yet there is the sweet consolation, their substance is in them still: they are still the Lord's, still his living children, though they have fallen into the coma of sin, and are now in a fainting fit, having gone astray from him, and having their animation suspended, while life is still there. Some, as soon as they see a Christian do any thing inconsistent with his profession, say, "That man is no child of God; he can not be; it is impossible." Ay, but, sir, remember what he thought who once said—"If a brother err, ye that are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." It is a fact, deny it who will, and abuse it, if you please, to your own wicked purposes; I can not help it—it is a fact that some living children of God have been allowed—and an awful allowance it is—to go into the very blackest sins. Do you think David was not a child of God, even when he sinned? It is a hard subject to touch; but it is not to be denied. He had the life of God within him before; and though he sinned—O! horrid and awful was the crime!—yet his substance was in him when he lost his leaves. And many a child of God has gone far away from his Master; but his substance is in him. And how know we this? Because a dead tree never lives again; if the substance be really gone, it never lives; and God's holy Word assures us, that if the real life of grace could die out in any one, it could never come again; for saith the apostle, "it is impossible, if they have been once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost"—if these fall away—"it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance." Their tree is "dead, plucked up by the roots." And the apostle Peter says—"For if, after they have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, they are again turned back, their last end shall be worse than the first." But now take David, or take Peter, which you please. Peter we will have. O! how foully did he curse his Master! With many an oath he denied him. But had not Peter the life of God in him then? Yes; and how do we know? Because when his Master looked upon him, he "went out and wept bitterly." Ah! if he had been a dead man, hardened and without the substance in him, his Master might have looked to all eternity, and he would not have wept bitterly. How know I that David was yet alive? Why, by this—that although there was a long, long winter, and there were many prickings of conscience, like the workings of the sap within a tree, abortive attempts to thrust forward here and there a shoot before its time, yet when the hour was come, and Nathan came to him and said, "Thou art the man," had David been dead, without the life of God, he would have spurned Nathan from him, and might have done what Manasseh did with Isaiah, cut him in pieces in his anger; but instead of that he bowed his head and wept before God; and still it is written, "The Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die." His substance was in him, when he lost his leaves. O! have pity upon poor fallen brethren. O! burn them not; they are not dead logs; though their leaves are gone their substance is in them. God can see grace in their hearts when you can not see it; he has put a life there that can never expire, for he has said, "I give unto my sheep eternal life," and that means a life that live for ever; "the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." You may choke the well up with big stones, but the water will find its way out yet, and well up notwithstanding. And so the heir of heaven may, to the grief of the church and to the injury of himself, most grievously transgress—and weep, my eyes, O weep for any that have done so, and O bleed, my heart, and thou hast bled, for any that have so sinned—but yet their "substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed"—that is, Christ within them, the Holy Ghost within them, the new creature within them—"the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." Poor backslider! here is a word of comfort for you. I would not comfort you in your sins; God forbid! But if you know your sins and hate them, let me comfort you. Thou art not dead! As Jesus said of the damsel, "She is not dead, but sleepeth," so let me say of thee, "Thou art not dead; thou shalt yet live." Dost thou repent? Dost thou grieve over thy sin? That is thee bud that shows that there is life within. When a common sinner sins he repents not, or if he doth repent it is with a legal repentance. His conscience pricks him, but he hushes it. He does not leave his sin and turn from it.
But did you ever see a child of God after he had been washed from a foul sin? He was a changed man. I know such an one, who used to carry a merry countenance, and many were the jokes he made in company; but when I met him after an awful sin, there was a solemnity about his countenance that was unusual to him. He looked, I should say, something like Dante, the poet, of whom the boys said, "There is the man that has been in hell;" because he had written of hell, and looked like it—he looked so terrible. And when we spoke of sin there was such a solemnity about him; and when we spoke of going astray the tears ran down his cheeks, as much to say, "I have been astray too." He seemed like good Christian, after he had been in Giant Despair's castle. Do you not remember, beloved, the guide who took the pilgrims up to the top of a hill called Clear, and he showed them from the top of the hill a lot of men with their eyes put out, groping among the tombs, and Christian asked what it meant. Said the guide, "These are pilgrims that were caught in Giant Despair's castle; the giant had their eyes put out, and they are left to wander among the tombs to die, and their bones are to be left in the court-yard." Whereupon John Bunyan very naively says, "I looked, and saw their eyes full of water, for they remembered they might have been there too." Just as the man talked and spoke that I once knew. He seemed to wonder why God had not left him to be an apostate for ever, as the lot of Judas or Demas. He seemed to think it such a startling thing that while many had gone aside altogether from God's way, he should still have had his substance in him, when he had lost his leaves, and that God should still have loved him. Perhaps, beloved, God allows some such men to live, and sin, and afterward repent, for this reason. You know there are some voices needed in music that are very rare, and when, now and then, such a voice is to be heard, every one will go to hear it. I have thought that perhaps some of these men in heaven will song soprano notes before the throne—choice, wondrous notes of grace, because they have gone into the depths of sin after profession; and yet he had loved them when their feet made hast to perdition, and fetched them up, because he "loved them well." There are but few such; for most men will go foully into sin; they will go out from us because they are not of us, for if they had been of us they would doubtless have continued with us. But there have been a few such—great saints, then great backsliding sinners, and then great saints again. Their substance was in them when they had lost their leaves. O! you that have gone far astray, sit and weep. You can not weep too much, though you should cry with Herbert—
"O, who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs,
Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds and rain!
My grief hath need of all the water things
That nature hath produced."
You might well say—
"Let every vein
Suck up a river to supply mine eyes,
My weary, weeping eyes; too dry for me,
Unless they get new conduits, new supplies,
To bear them out, and with my state agree."
But yet remember, "He hath not forsaken his people, neither hath he cut them off;" for still he says—
"Return, O wanderer, return,
And seek an injured father's heart."
Return! return! return! Thy Father's bowels still move for thee. He speaks through the written oracles at this moment, saying, "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, O Israel? How can I make thee as Adimah? How can I set thee as Zeboim?" My bowels are moved; my repentings are kindled together; for I will heal their backslidings, I will receive them graciously, I will love them freely, for they are mine still. As the terebinth and as the oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, even so the holy seed within the elect and called vessels of mercy, is still the substance thereof.
And now, what have I to say to some of you that live in black sin, and yet excuse yourselves on account of the recorded falls of God's people? Sir, know this! Inasmuch as you do this, you wrest the Scriptures to your own destruction. If one man has taken poison, and there has been a physician by his side so skillful that he has saved his life by a heavenly antidote, is that any reason why thou, who hast no physician and no antidote, should yet think that the poison will not kill thee? Why, man, the sin that does not damn a Christian, because Christ washes him in his blood, will damn you. Said Brookes—and I will repeat his words and have done—"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, said the apostle, be his sins never so many; but he that believeth not shall be damned, be his sins never so few. Truly your sins may be little; but you are lost for them without Christ. Your sins may be great; but if Christ shall pardon them, then you shall be saved. The one question, then, I have to ask of thee, is—Hast thou Christ? For if thou hast not, then thou hast not the holy seed; thou art a dead tree, and in due time thou shalt be tinder for hell. Thou art a rotten-hearted tree, all touch-wood, ready to be broken in pieces; eaten by the worms of lust; and ah! when the fire shall take hold of thee, what a blazing and a burning! O! that thou hadst life! O! that God would give it to thee! O! that thou wouldst now repent! O! that thou wouldst cast thyself on Jesus! O! that thou wouldst turn to him with full purpose of heart! For then, remember, thou wouldst be saved—saved now, and saved for ever; for "the holy seed" would be "the substance thereof."

James Smith 1860

http://gracegems.org/Smith4/a_momentous_question.htm

A Momentous Question

James Smith, 1860

As all real religion begins and is carried on by the Holy Spirit, who renews, sanctifies, and makes us fit for glory — it is a question of the greatest importance, "Have we received the Holy Spirit?" All primitive Christians had, and they knew it, otherwise they could not have been filled with joy and peace — as they were expressly told, that if any man had not the Spirit of Christ, he was none of his. The Spirit comes to claim us for Christ, takes possession of us in the name of Christ, fits us for the service of Christ, and trains us up for the everlasting enjoyment of the presence of Christ. The Spirit is not only in the Church as a body — but he is in every member of that body. Let us therefore press home the solemn question, "Have you received the Holy Spirit?" Acts 19:2.
 

Consider the CHARACTERS in which the Holy Spirit is to be expected.

He is the QUICKENER. The life-giving Spirit. All spiritual life flows from him. He quickens the dead in sin — quickens us together with Christ. Every divine emotion flows from him. Every holy desire is from him. Every acceptable prayer is from him. He is to the soul, what the soul is to the body; as therefore the body without the soul is dead, so the soul without the Holy Spirit is dead also. Nor is the body more dead to temporal things — than the soul is to spiritual things.

He is the ENLIGHTENER. He enlightens the understanding, and illuminates the heart. Without the Holy Spirit, all is darkness; therefore . . .
we do not see the dreadful depravity of the heart,
we do not feel our dangerous state,
we do not perceive the glory of the Savior,
we do not flee from the wrath to come.

It is only in his light, that we can . . .
read the Word of God to profit,
find our way into the presence of the Father, or
see the goings of our God, our King in his sanctuary.

The natural eye, is not more dependent on the sun for light, to see the beauties of creation — than the soul is dependent on the Holy Spirit to see the glories of grace.

He is the COMFORTER.

As the Quickener, he speaks, and we live;
as the Enlightener, he commands, and we see;
but as the Comforter, he comes down nearer to our level. He sympathizes with us in all our losses and crosses, in all our trials and troubles, in all our conflicts and tribulations; and by . . .
revealing the Father,
leading us to Jesus,
unfolding the truth of the Word,
and applying the promises —
he comforts us and often fills us with joy.

The babe is not more dependent on its tender mother for comfort, than we are upon the Holy and ever blessed Spirit.

He is the SANCTIFIER. He sets us apart for God, and stamps upon us the image of God. He brings us out from the world, separates us from the ungodly, and by his inward operations conforms us to the will of God. His power alone is sufficient . . .
to detach us from the world,
to lift us up out of self, and
consecrate us to the service of God.

All holiness flows from the Holy Spirit.

All fitness for glory is the work of the Holy Spirit.

The stone is not more dependent on the mason, to polish and reduce it to the intended form; than we are dependent on the Holy Spirit for the purification of our natures and conformity to Christ.

He is the SEALER. He is the Father's seal, so that when received into the heart as the testifier of Christ, we are sealed unto the day of redemption. His gracious work within us . . .
proves that we are Christ's,
confirms our title to the inheritance of the saints in light,
and preserves us unto eternal glory.

He is the pledge of our eternal inheritance. The pledge is a part of the whole. He who has the pledge, is sure of the rest. If therefore we have received the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of adoption — we have that within us, which assures us, that Heaven with all its glory and joy is ours.

Blessed Comforter,
let me experience more of your quickening power;
let me enjoy more of your enlightening influence;
let me receive more of your divine consolations;
let me be more thoroughly, more deeply, sanctified by your grace;
let me be by you, more evidently sealed as the Holy Spirit of promise;
and be in my heart, the pledge of the future inheritance!
 

What are the EVIDENCES of having received the Holy Spirit?

1. If we have the Spirit now — we know that we had not once. We may not be able to tell when we received the Spirit, or how he commenced his work within us; for "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." But though we cannot tell exactly when we received the Spirit, or describe his work and operations on the soul — yet we know that a change has passed upon us, for we are not what we were once; and it is such a change as man could not effect, such a change as we could not produce ourselves. If, therefore, it is beyond man's power, and opposed to the nature and designs of Satan — it must be of God, and is an evidence that we have received the Holy Spirit.

2. If we have received the Holy Spirit — the Lord Jesus stands high in our estimation — and our views of ourselves are very humbling. And, just in proportion to the power and depth of the Spirit's work — will be our conceptions of the glory, grandeur, and excellency of the Savior; and our discoveries of the depravity, pollution, weakness, and misery of our own hearts. If, therefore, we have heart affecting views of the glory of Christ and his finished work, and if we lie low in the dust under a sense of our weakness and worthlessness, so that we are brought to depend wholly on Christ, and on Christ alone — we have received the Holy Spirit.

3. If we have received the Holy Spirit — we admire the holiness, approve of the demands, and reverence the authority of God's law. We see that it is holy, just, and good. We perceive that it is a reflection of God's moral attributes. We once dreaded its sentence, objected to its strictness, and wished its annihilation. But having heard and received the gospel, which gospel provides for the honor of the law, and presents the sinner with all that is necessary to meet the law's demands — we highly prize the gospel, and deeply reverence the law. Now with Paul we can say, "I delight in the law of God, after the inward man."

If we habitually admire and reverence the law of God, and prize and appreciate the everlasting gospel — we have received the Holy Spirit.

4. If we have received the Holy Spirit, we dread deception; and lest we should deceive ourselves, or be deceived by others, we often examine ourselves, and beseech God to examine us. The cry often ascends from the heart, "Examine me, O God. Search me, O Lord. Never, never let me be deceived, or foster a false hope, or build on an unsafe foundation!"

Connected with this, the soul is in earnest to secure a saving interest in Christ and his finished work. It feels at times as if it could scarcely ever be sure enough, the matter is of such infinite importance. It digs deep, and lays its foundation upon a rock.

Now if we dread being deceived ourselves, and feel determined that we will not deceive others, in reference to our soul's salvation; and if we are determined by all means to secure a saving interest in Christ, cost what it may — we have received the Holy Spirit.

5. If we have received the Holy Spirit — there is in us a deep-rooted, abiding hatred to sin — all sin, especially sin in ourselves. What was once our darling sin has become the object of our hatred — and against that we set a double guard. For nothing do we sigh so often, nothing do we desire so ardently — as holiness. The Holy Spirit always sets the whole soul against sin, and longing for perfect holiness.

True, our old feelings toward sin will sometimes revive — but then we loath ourselves on account of it, mourn over it, and confess it before God. The cry of the soul is, "Holiness, Lord, more holiness! Deep, penetrating, all-pervading holiness!"

Now, if we hate sin everywhere, all sin, and especially the sin that dwells in us; and if we love holiness, admire holiness, pray for holiness, pant for holiness, and strive for holiness — then there is no doubt but we have received the Holy Spirit.

6. If we have received the Holy Spirit — we wish to be useful in the cause of Christ. We want to do something for him — who has done so much for us! We behold transgressors, and are grieved. We long to save souls from death. If the Spirit's work is deep within us, we are willing to do anything, to suffer anything, to go anywhere, or become anything — if we may but honor the dear name, spread the glorious truth, and increase the number of the followers of Christ.

To be useless is to be miserable. To be inactive in the cause of Jesus, while so much is to be done, is execrable. The soul is ready to cry out, "O for a thousand tongues to speak for Jesus!" If the ruling desire of our souls is to be useful in the cause of Christ, on purpose that the Lord Jesus may be glorified — then doubtless we have received the Holy Spirit.

7. Once more, if we have received the Holy Spirit — then we are ruled by God's Word; we do not follow custom, or allow our passions or prejudices to dictate our course. In all times of difficulty, when in any perplexity, something seems to say, "To the law and to the testimony," and to the precepts of the New Testament, we turn.

The Word of Christ is the law of the true believer. Everything short of it, or beyond it, or beside it, or contrary to it — is sin! "Only what Jesus commands, all that Jesus commands, and because Jesus commands," is the language of the soul.

And while we thus make the Word of Jesus our rule — we deny ourselves. We deny our own wills, our own passions, our own desires, our likes and dislikes. We are before Him, as He was before His Father, when He cried out, "Not My will — but may Your be done." If, then, we make the Word of God our guide, and habitually deny ourselves for Christ's sake — we may rest assured, that we have received the Holy Spirit.

Observe, there is no one who has received Christ — who has not received the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit claims the heart for Christ, enters it in the name of Christ, and prepares it for the reception of Christ. The beauty of Christ is never seen, the need of Christ is never felt, the desire for Christ is never realized, the opening of the heart to admit Christ never takes place — but where the Spirit of the Lord is.

8. No one has received the Spirit, who is satisfied with present attainments; for where the Spirit dwells and works — nothing short of perfection will satisfy. Even Paul said, "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:13-14.

9. He who has the Spirit within him always depends upon Christ without him. He never makes the Spirit's work, his foundation or the ground of his dependence — but he builds on Christ alone. Thus the Spirit glorifies Jesus by leading the soul away from himself, and even from his own operations — to rest alone on Christ's precious blood and perfect righteousness.

Let us, then, devoutly seek more of the Spirit's power, grace, and operations; yes, let us seek to be filled with the Spirit, then we shall be . . .
deeply sanctified to God,
fully assured of our acceptance with God,
walk so as to please God, and
at death we shall be called up to dwell forever with God, and eternally enjoy God!

Reader, "have you received the Holy Spirit?" Remember, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ — he does not belong to Him!" Romans 8:9