*52 the Bible college life at Dunoon 'based on the simplicity of daring faith in God for the provision of needs' became the groundwork of C's life of faith and obedience. he came to know by experience that God answers prayer. likewise there was created in his innermost being a huger and thirst that only the living God can satisfy. that deep desire, almost fathomless, he struggled to express in his diary;
'the Holy Spirit must anoint me for the work , fir me and so vividly convince me that such and such a way is mine to aim at, or i shall not go, I will not, I dare not; I shall just be content to earn my living - but, no, that cannot be.. from my very childhood the persuasion has been that of a work, strange and great, an experience deep and peculiar, it has haunted me ever and ever.... here is the lamb and the wood, but where is the fire? nothing but the fire of the most Holy Spirit of God can make the offering holy and unblameable and acceptable i His sight'.
it was at that time, when his 'soul was in turmoil', that he wrote these lines:
Let me climb, let me climb, I'm sure i've time
'ere the mist comes up from the sea.
let me climb in time to the height sublime,
let me reach where I long to be.
climbing in the Spirit is accomplished by kneeling and not by running; by surrender and not by determination. despair of self leads to utter desperation; but beyond these mists lies the sunshine of God's presence. many a soul will turn back to accustomed marshlands of defeat rather than brave the
*53 fogs of frustration, but the mountain peaks rise high above the rain and gloom.
this pattern in the crisis of the deeper life, followed by its wide outreach, is almost identical with the experience of countless others of God's children. first, there is the huger of heart, often followed y a sense of desperation that leads to utter surrender of self. thereafter there is the meeting of the soul with God in whatever manner the Almighty is pleased to reveal himself to the desperate seeker who, like Jacob at Jabbok, Will Not Let Him Go Until There Is Blessing...
'I was in Dunnon College as a tutor in philosophy, he recalled, when Dr. F. B. Meyer came and spoke about the Holy Spirit. I determined to have all that was going and went to my room and asked God simply and definitely for the baptism of the HS, whatever that meant. from that day on for 4 years nothing but the overruling grace of God and kindness of friends dept me out of an asylum.
God used me during those years for the conversion of souls, but I had no conscious communion with Him. the Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence and the sense of depravity, the vileness and bad-motivedness of my nature, was terrific. i see now that God was taking me by the light of the Holy Spirit and His Word through every ramification of my being.
the last 3 months of those years things reached a climax, I was getting very desperate. I knew no one who had what i wanted; in fact I did not know what i did want. but i
*54 knew that if what i had was all the Christianity there was, the thing was a fraud. then Luke 11.13 got hold of me - 'If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy spirit to them that ask Him?
but how could I, bad motivated as I was, possibly ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit? then it was borne in upon me that i had to claim the gift from God on the authority of Jesus Christ and testify to having done so. but the though came - if you claim the gift of the HS on the word of Jesus Christ and testify to it, God will make it known to those who know you best how bad you are in heart. and I was not willing to be a fool for Christ's sake. but those of you who know the experience, know very well how god brings one to the point of utter despair, and I got to the place where I did not care whether everyone knew how bad I was; I cared for nothing on earth, saving to get out of my present condition.
at a little meeting held during a mission in Dunoon, a well known lady was asked to take the after meeting. she did not speak, but set us to prayer and then sang 'touch me again, Lord'. I felt nothing, but I knew emphatically my time had come and I rose to my feet. i had no vision of god, only a sheer dogged determination to take god at His word and to prove this thing for myself and I stood up and said so.
that was bad enough, but what followed was 10 times worse. after I had sat down the lady worker, who knew me well, said: 'that is very good of our brother, he has spoken like that as an example to the rest of you.
I got again and said: 'I got up for no one (else's) sake, I got up for my own sake; either Christianity is a downright fraud, or I have not got hold of the right end of the stick'. and then and there I claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit in dogged committal on Luke 11.13.
*55 I had no vision of heaven or of angels, I had nothing. I was as dry and empty as ever, no power or realization of God, no witness of the Holy Spirit. then i was asked to speak at a meeting and 40 souls came out to the front. did i praise God? No, I was terrified and left them to the workers and went to Mr. MacGregor 9 a friend) and told him what had happened , and he said: 'Don't you remember claiming the HS as a gift on the word of Jesus and that He said: 'Ye shall receive power...? 'this is the power from on high'. then lie a flash something happened inside me and i saw that i had been wanting power in my own hand, so to speak, that i might say - Look what i have by putting my all on the altar.
if the 4 previous years had been hell on earth, these 5 years have truly been heaven on earth. Glory be to God, the last aching abyss of the human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God. love is the beginning, love is the middle and love is the end. after he comes in, all you see is 'Jesus only, Jesus ever'.
when you know what God has done for you, the power and the tyranny of sin is gone and the radiant, unspeakable emancipation of the indwelling Christ has come and when you see men and women who should be princes and presses with God bound up by the show of things - oh,you begin to understand what the apostle meant when he said he wished himself accursed from Christ that men might be saved!
it was with implicit obedience that OC learned, on the basis of Luke 11.13, that By Faith we receive the fullness of God's Spirit, just as by faith we receive the Lord Jesus as Savior.
and what did the immediacy of God mean in the life of Oswald Chambers? he himself said again and again, 'It is no wonder that i talk so much about an altered disposition: God altered mine; I was there when He did it...
*56 as was true of the prophets of old, Chambers was a man of God, but not unapproachable nor other-worldly. he was personable and practical and yet a dreamer, a thinker with a long range view. a pastor wrote of him: 'In friendly intercourse he was one of the most genial and attractive of men. the children in the home love him and his boyish ways....yet he was a might unflinching messenger of God. he never obtruded his views upon others, bu when men sought further knowledge, they soon found they were in the presence of a master mind.
he was a man of prayer, interceding, imploring and believing. he had rare insight into the meaning of the Scripture and from this came pointed and practical preaching. derogatory speaking on the part of others did not deflect his spirit from following his Savior, who likewise knew what is meant to be 'despised and rejected of men'. he was literally 'a bond slave of Jesus Christ' and yet none knew more glorious liberty as a child of God.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment