This is how Albert Benjamin Simpson (1843-1919) puts it.
I wish to speak
to you about Jesus, and Jesus only. I often hear people say, "I wish I could get
hold of Divine Healing, but I cannot." Sometimes they say, "I have got it." If I
ask them, "What have you got?" the answer is sometimes, "I have got the
blessing", sometimes it is, "I have got the theory"; sometimes it is, "I have
got the healing"; sometimes, "I have got the sanctification." But I thank God we
have been taught that it is not the blessing, it is not the healing, it is not
the sanctification, it is not the thing, it is not the it that you want, but it
is something better. It is "the Christ"; it is Himself. How often that comes out
in His Word - "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses", Himself
"bare our sins in his own body on the tree"! It is the person of Jesus Christ we
want. Plenty of people get the idea and do not get anything out of it. They get
it into their head, and it into their conscience, and it into their will; but
somehow they do not get Him into their life and spirit, because they have only
that which is the outward expression and symbol of the spiritual reality. I once
saw a picture of the Constitution of the United States, very skillfully engraved
in copper plate, so that when you looked at it closely it was nothing more than
a piece of writing, but when you looked at it at a distance, it was the face of
George Washington. The face shone out in the shading of the letters at a little
distance, and I saw the person, not the words, nor the ideas; and I thought,
"'That is the way to look at the Scriptures and understand the thoughts of God,
to see in them the face of love, shining through and through; not ideas, nor
doctrines, but Jesus Himself as the Life and Source and sustaining Presence of
all our life."
I prayed a long time to get sanctified, and sometimes I
thought I had it. On one occasion I felt something, and I held on with a
desperate grip for fear I should lose it, and kept awake the whole night fearing
it would go, and, of course, it went with the next sensation and the next mood.
Of course, I lost it because I did not hold on to Him. I had been taking a
little water from the reservoir, when I might have all the time received from
Him fullness through the open channels. I went to meetings and heard people
speak of joy. I even thought I had the joy, but I did not keep it because I had
not Himself as my joy. At last He said to me - Oh so tenderly - "My child, just
take Me, and let Me be in you the constant supply of all this, Myself." And when
at last I got my eyes off my sanctification, and my experience of it, and just
placed them on the Christ in me, I found, instead of an experience, the Christ
larger than the moment's need, the Christ that had all that I should ever need
who was given to me at once, and for ever! And when I thus saw Him, it was such
rest; it was all right, and right for ever. For I had not only what I could hold
that little hour, but also in Him, all that I should need the next and the next
and so on, until sometimes I get a glimpse of what it will be a million years
afterwards, when we shall "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our Father"
(Matt. 13: 43), and have "all the fullness of God."
And so I thought the
healing would be an it too, that the Lord would take me like the old run-down
clock, wind me up, and set me going like a machine. It is not thus at all. I
found it was Himself coming in instead and giving me what I needed at the
moment. I wanted to have a great stock, so that I could feel rich; a great store
laid up for many years, so that I would not be dependent upon Him the next day;
but He never gave me such a store. I never had more holiness or healing at one
time than I needed for that hour. He said: "My child, you must come to Me for
the next breath because I love you so dearly I want you to come all the time. If
I gave you a great supply, you would do without Me and would not come to Me so
often; now you have to come to Me every second, and lie on My breast every
moment." He gave me a great fortune, placed thousands and millions at credit,
but He gave a cheque-book with this one condition, "You never can draw more than
you need at the time." Every time a cheque was wanted, however, there was the
name of Jesus upon it, and so it brought more glory to Him, kept His name before
the heavenly world and God was glorified in His Son.
I had to learn to
take from Him my spiritual life every second, to breathe Himself in as I
breathed, and breathe myself out. So, moment by moment for the spirit, and
moment by moment for the body, we must receive. You say, "Is not that a terrible
bondage, to be always on the strain ?" What, on the strain with one you love,
your dearest Friend ? Oh, no! It comes so naturally, so spontaneously, so like a
fountain, without consciousness, without effort, for true life is always easy,
and overflowing.
And now, thank God, I have Him, not only what I have
room for, but that which I have not room for, but for which I shall have room,
moment by moment, as I go on into the eternity before me. I am like the little
bottle in the sea, as full as it will hold. The bottle is in the sea, and the
sea is in the bottle; so I am in Christ, and Christ is in me. But, besides that
bottleful in the sea, there is a whole ocean beyond; the difference is, that the
bottle has to be filled over again, every day, evermore.
Now the question
for each of us is not "What think you of Bethshan, and what think you of divine
healing?" but "What think you of Christ?" There came a time when there was a
little thing between me and Christ. I express it by a little conversation with a
friend who said, "You were healed by faith." "Oh, no," I said, "I was healed by
Christ." What is the difference? There is a great difference. There came a time
when even faith seemed to come between me and Jesus. I thought I should have to
work up the faith, so I labored to get the faith. At last I thought I had it;
that if I put my whole weight upon it, it would hold. I said, when I thought I
had got the faith, "Heal me." I was trusting in myself, in my own heart, in my
own faith. I was asking the Lord to do something for me because of something in
me, not because of something in Him. So the Lord allowed the devil to try my
faith, and the devil devoured it like a roaring lion, and I found myself so
broken down that I did not think I had any faith. God allowed it to be taken
away until I felt I had none. And then God seemed to speak to me so sweetly,
saying, "Never mind, my child, you have nothing. But I am perfect Power, I am
perfect Love, I am Faith, I am your Life, I am the preparation for the blessing,
and then I am the Blessing, too. I am all within and all without, and all for
ever." It is just having "Faith in God" (Mark 11: 22). "And the life I now live
in the flesh, I live," not by faith on the Son of God, but "by the faith of the
Son of God" (Gal. 2 20). That is it. It is not your faith. You have no faith in
you, any more than you have life or anything else in you. You have nothing but
emptiness and vacuity, and you must be just openness and readiness to take Him
to do all. You have to take His faith as well as His life and healing, and have
simply to say, "I live by the faith of the Son of God." My faith is not worth
anything. If I had to pray for anyone, I would not depend upon my faith at all.
I would say, "Here, Lord, am I. If you want me to be the channel of blessing to
this one just breathe into me all that I need." It is simply Christ, Christ
alone.
Now, is your body yielded to Christ for Him thus to dwell and work
in you? The Lord Jesus Christ has a body as well as you only it is perfect; it
is the body, not of a man, but of the Son of man. Have you considered why He is
called the Son of man? The Son of man means that Jesus Christ is the one
typical, comprehensive, universal, all-inclusive Man. Jesus is the one man that
contains in Himself all that man ought to be all that man needs to have. It is
all in Christ. All the fullness of the Godhead and the fullness of a perfect
manhood has been embodied in Christ, and He stands now as the summing-up of all
that man needs. His spirit is all that your spirit needs, and He just gives us
Himself. His body possesses all that your body needs. He has a heart beating
with the strength that your heart needs. He has organs and functions redundant
with life, not for Himself, but for humanity. He does not need strength for
Himself. The energy which enabled Him to rise and ascend from the tomb, above
all the forces of nature, was not for Himself. That marvellous body belongs to
your body. You are a member of His body. Your heart has a right to draw from His
heart all that it needs. Your physical life has a right to draw from His
physical life its support and strength, and so it is not you, but it is just the
precious life of the Son of God. Will you take Him thus today, and then you will
not be merely healed, but you will have a new life for all you need, a flood of
life that will sweep disease away, and then remain a fountain of life for all
your future need. Oh, take Him in His fullness.
It seems to me as if I
might just bring you a little talisman today, as if God had given me a little
secret for every one here and said to me, "Go and tell them, if they will take
it, it will be a talisman of power wherever they go, and it will carry them
through difficulty, danger, fear, life, death, eternity." If I could stand on
this platform and say, "I have received from heaven a secret of wealth and
success which God will give freely, through my hand, to everybody who will take
it," I am sure you would need a larger hall for the people who would come. But,
dear friends, I show you in His Word a truth which is more precious. The Apostle
Paul tells us that there is a secret, a great secret which was hidden from ages
and from generations (Col. 1: 26), which the world was seeking after in vain,
which wise men from the East hoped they might find, and God says it "is now made
manifest to his saints"; and Paul went through the world just to tell it to
those that were able to receive it; and that simple secret is just this "Christ
in you the hope of glory."
The word "mystery" means secret; this is the
great secret. And I tell you today, nay, I can give you, if you will take it
from Him, not from me-I can give you a secret which has been to me, oh, so
wonderful! Years ago I came to Him burdened with guilt and fear; I tried that
simple secret, and it took away all my fear and sin. Years passed on, and I
found sin overcoming me and my temptations too strong for me. I came to Him a
second time, and He whispered to me, "Christ in you," and I had victory, rest
and blessing.
Then the body broke away in every sort of way. I had always
worked hard, and from the age of fourteen I studied and labored and spared no
strength. I took charge of a large congregation at the age of twenty-one; I
broke down utterly half a dozen times and at my last constitution was worn out.
Many times I feared I should drop dead in my pulpit. I could not ascend any
height without a sense of suffocation, because of a broken-down heart and
exhausted nervous system. I heard of the Lord's healing, but I struggled against
it. I was afraid of it. I had been taught in theological seminaries that the age
of the supernatural was past, and I could not go back from my early training. My
head was in my way, but at last when I was brought to attend "the funeral of my
dogmatics," as Mr. Schrenck says, "the Lord whispered to me the little secret,
'Christ in you'; and from that hour I received Him for my body as I had done for
my soul. I was made so strong and well that work has been a perfect delight. For
years I have spent my summer holiday in the hot city of New York, preaching and
working amongst the masses, as I never did before; besides the work of our Home
and College and an immense mass of library work and much besides. But the Lord
did not merely remove my sufferings. It was more than simple healing. He so gave
me Himself that I lost the painful consciousness of physical organs. That is the
best of the health He gives. I thank the Lord that He keeps me from all morbid,
physical consciousness and a body that is the object of anxious care, and gives
a simple life that is a delight and a service for the Master, that is a rest and
joy.
Then, again, I had a poor sort of a mind, heavy and cumbrous, that
did not think or work quickly. I wanted to write and speak for Christ and to
have a ready memory, so as to have the little knowledge I had gained always
under command. I went to Christ about it, and asked if He had anything for me in
this way. He replied, "Yes, my child, I am made unto you Wisdom." I was always
making mistakes, which I regretted, and then thinking I would not make them
again; but when He said that He would be my wisdom, that we may have the mind of
Christ, that He could cast down imaginations and bring into captivity every
thought to the obedience of Christ, that He could make the brain and head right,
then I took Him for all that. And since then I have been kept free from this
mental disability, and work has been rest. I used to write two sermons a week,
and it took me three days to complete one. But now, in connection with my
literary work, I have numberless pages of matter to write constantly besides the
conduct of very many meetings a week, and all is delightfully easy to me. The
Lord has helped me mentally, and I know He is the Saviour of our mind as well as
our spirit.
Well, then, I had an irresolute will. I asked, ' Cannot you
be a will to me?" He said, "Yes, my child, it is God who worketh in you to will
and to do." Then He made me to learn how and when to be firm, and how and when
to yield. Many people have a decided will, but they do not know how to hold on
just at the proper moment. So, too, I came to Him for power for His work and all
the resources for His service, and He has not failed me.
And so I would
say, if this precious little secret of "Christ in you," will help you, you may
have it. May you make better use of it than I! I feel I have only begun to learn
how well it works. Take it and go on working it out, through time and
eternity-Christ for all, grace for grace, from strength to strength, from glory
to glory, from this time forth and even for evermore.
HIMSELF
by
A. B. Simpson
Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;
Once it was
the feeling, Now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver
own;
Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.
Once 'twas painful
trying, Now 'tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation, Now the
uttermost.
Once 'twas ceaseless holding, Now He holds me fast;
Once 'twas
constant drifting, Now my anchor's cast.
Once 'twas busy planning, Now
'tis trustful prayer;
Once 'twas anxious caring, Now He has the care.
Once
'twas what I wanted, Now what Jesus says;
Once 'twas constant asking, Now
'tis ceaseless praise.
Once it was my working, His it hence shall
be;
Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted, Now
the Mighty One;
Once for self I labored, Now for Him alone.
Once I
hoped in Jesus, Now I know He's mine;
Once my lamps were dying, Now they
brightly shine.
Once for death I waited, Now His coming hail;
And my hopes
are anchored, Safe within the vail.
- Glenn Regular
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