Books: The Heart Cry of Jesus
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Byron J. Rees >> The Heart Cry of Jesus
WEEPING OVER CHORAZIN.
This is the explanation of the zeal of men who are "burning for
Jesus." This is the reason men so frequently wear out in short
order after they are sanctified. They are dipped in fellowship
with Christ's sorrow, and beholding Him weeping over modern
Capernaums and Chorazins their hearts are melted at the sight, and
they speed away to preach the gospel of the lovely Son of God.
SANCTIFIED SUCCESS.
No wonder success comes to the sanctified man. Indwelt by the
Shekinah, filled witll the Holy Ghost, his whole being energized
with power and force, "whatsoever he doeth prospers."
CHAPTER XI.
VISITS OF ANGELS.
DESCRIPTIVE PSALM.
The ninety-first Psalm is a painstaking description of the
blessings and benefits bestowed upon the man that "dwelleth in the
secret place of the Most High." Without doubt the entire chapter
should be taken as a photograph of the sanctified man. Among other
things, this fortunate and favored person is told that he is to
have angelic guards and ministers who will protect him and keep
him "in all his ways."
GOD'S OWN.
The sanctified are in a peculiar sense God's own, and all the
resources of heaven are pledged to their protection. All the fire
companies of the firmament will turn out to extinguish a fire if
it kindle on God's saints. If need be, Jehovah will empty His balm
jars but the wounds of warriors shall be healed. Angels are
detailed for our protection: heavenly visitants hover near us lest
the fires of affliction destroy us.
UNDERSTANDING CHRIST.
The moment the soul is sanctified, it begins to understand Christ
in a new and delightful sense. It is given unto it to not only sit
at His feet in the temple, but to groan with Him in Grethsemane.
It understands Him, and, in suffering, is "as He is in this
world."
A DARK HOUR.
It was a dark, dark hour for the Master. He had been praying a
long while, perhaps for several hours. The place was one familiar
to Him. Many a night after a long, wearisome day of teaching in
the temple, He had labored painfully up the slope of the Mount of
Olives in search of the quiet of "the Garden." Here the Savior had
His oratory. Sometimes the disciples were with Him; at other times
He was alone.
A NIGHT OF CRISIS.
But this night was a night of crisis. The old olive trees, in all
their centuries of life, had never witnessed so intense a struggle
as that which took place on the night of His passion. Alive to all
the pathos of the hour, awake to all the gravity of the situation,
sensitive to the slightest breath, He prays to "the Father" with
that desperation in which the flight of time and the doings of the
world are all forgotten.
UNCERTAINTY.
There was much about the hour which made it a painful one. There
was, first of all, an uncertainty concerning the will of "the
Father." With a great cry the lonely Christ fell to the ground:
"If it be thy will let this cup pass, nevertheless" let thy will,
whatsoever it is, "be done." Evidently He was not at that time
really sure what the plan of "the Father" was in regard to Him.
A BITTER CUP.
Uncertainty is a fearful test, when it comes to the soul of a man
of great and energetic purpose. So long as there is no doubt about
the course to be taken, so long as the plan is plainly revealed,
it is easy for a courageous man to advance. But to such a one
uncertainty is like a shock to the body, palsying the form and
changing a strong arm into a nerveless, useless stick of bone and
tissue. A cup may be very bitter, salt with the brine of tears and
hot with the fire of vitriol, and yet, if all the ingredients in
that cup are known to him who drinks it, grief has not reached its
superlative. Socrates' duty was plain to him. Hemlock was in the
cup, and he knew it. But the liquor with which God fills the
tumblers of His people is brewed from a thousand elements.
A TEST.
To trust in the dark, to believe in a rayless midnight, to cling
to a thread well-nigh invisible, to say "Amen" to God when one has
no idea of the greatness of the meaning of "His will," that is the
supremest test of loyalty.
THE NIGHT PICKET.
The night picket stationed far out from the camp has need of much
greater courage than the soldier in battle ranks rushing on toward
the enemy. The man at the lonely picket post, cloaked in darkness,
is guarding against uncertainty. He can not tell at once whether a
dark object is a dangerous spy or a browsing Brindle. Sounds must
be noted and sorted lest the enemy steal up to the slumbering army
and destroy it. The snapping of twigs, the low whistle of a bird,
the groan of the wind, the murmur of a waterfall must all be
listened to with care.
EVIL TIDINGS.
It is suspense and a nameless dread and fear that sap many a mind
and heart. Moments of breathless expectancy of evil tidings are
like years in the life, bringing ashes to the hair, lines to the
cheek and listlessness to the eye.
THE PALLED FACE.
"Be sure you are right, then go ahead," said Tennesseean Crockett;
but supposing that one can not "be sure" of anything except the
love of God, supposing that one looks out through the tangled
limbs of the olive trees of a Gethsemane to a sky studded with
pitiless stars, supposing that the future is obscure and the
present black as Styx, supposing that even the face of the Father
Himself is palled and curtained--then must one be content to trust
and only trust.
THREE DISCIPLES
There was another cause for pain in "the Garden." The three
disciples, whom He had chosen to accompany Him in His dark and
lonely vigil, slept as He prayed. We can bring ourselves to
overlook the negligence and apathy of Nicodemus and Lazarus and
Simon the leper and Zaccheus and the crowds who had merely heard
Him preach. We are willing perhaps to excuse eight of the twelve
for their drowsiness--perchance they did not apprehend the full
meaning of the hour to the Master. But there were three disciples
to whom Christ had ever laid bare His heart. With Him they stood
in the death chamber in the house of Jairus. To them it was given
to behold "the vision splendid" on the mount of transfiguration,
and these alone Jesus chose to enter into the fellowship of his
Garden sufferings.
NO EXCUSE.
These men did not nod and sleep ignorant of Christ's need of them.
With that tender confidence with which a truly great and colossal
man sometimes honors his friends, He had said, "My soul is
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." He had warned them with the
words, "Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation," and yet
they slept!
"OUR OWN AFFAIRS."
It must have been a keen disappointment to Jesus to find His most
trusted friends so indifferent to His needs. Is there anything in
life sadder than the discovery that our own affairs are really
only our own affairs? We had thought that they were our friends',
as well as our own. We had supposed that our griefs were theirs
also, but when Grethsemane comes into our lives, and we writhe and
twist among the gnarled and knotted roots, when we turn with
blanched, tear-sprinkled faces to our chosen James and trusted
Peter and beloved John to gasp in their ears the story of our
agony, we hear only the heavy breathing of sound sleepers.
COLD, HARSH FACT.
If there is a sharper pang than this, man's heart has not found
it. We are by nature social beings. We crave fellowship and love
and sympathy, and it is so hard for us to realize that our
choicest friends are really "asleep" to our heart cries and heart
interests. The cold, harsh fact can be believed but slowly. Even
the Lord seemed to find it hard to convince His own heart that the
John who had leaned at supper upon His breast, was resting while
his Master was sweating blood. He prayed awhile and then, as if to
see whether it was indeed true that no one watched to help Him,
"He came and found them sleeping." Sad, cruel disappointment, and
yet is it so rare that any one of us has not felt its sadness and
cruelty?
AN ANGEL.
But while men forgot the Nazarene and His troubles, Grod did not
forget. The Father was not negligent nor careless. "There appeared
an angel unto him from heaven strengthening him." The night was
not too dark for the angel to find Jesus, and the night of our
troubles is never too thick and black for the angels to find us.
The paths of "the Garden" may be grown up in weeds, the rough,
scabeous limbs of the trees may hang close to the ground, the
driving clouds may hide the moon and stars, but some celestial
messenger will search us out and find us.
IN MANY FORMS.
God has many angels, and they come in many forms. Sometimes the
solitary sufferer sees only a tiny flower, but love is in the
flower, and he knows he is not utterly forgotten. It may be only
an hand clasp, but warmth and sympathy are in it, and behold it is
straightway "an angel strengthening him." Perchance it is a letter
with a foreign postmark, but in it is nectar and ambrosia for a
drooping spirit. Or the angel may come enveloped in a text of
Scripture or flying on the wings of the music of some old hymn,
such as:
"Fear not! I am with thee.
Oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God!
I will still give thee aid."
In whatever role the angel may come, God sent him, and his mission
is one of blessing and encouragement.
HEAVENLY VISITANTS.
We can well afford to suffer in the darkness, alone and
uncomforted, if angels will but visit us. John Bunyan can well be
content in Bedford gaol, if God but puts a dream in his head and
heart that will last in the memories and characters of men, when
the sun is a burned-out cinder and the stars are dying ash heaps.
We can well be satisfied to have sorrows unutterable and griefs
inexpressible, if heavenly visitants will but come to us.
CHAPTER XII.
GROWTH IN CHRISTLINESS OF LIFE.
MAKING A BOTCH.
One may have a clean, pure heart and yet be far from possessing a
matured Christian character. A man may love God with all his
heart, and yet not be wise in his selection of the things that
will always please God. Frequently the preacher may come down from
the pulpit having made a horrible botch of his attempt to serve
God in the ministry. He may feel the fact keenly, and be even more
conscious of it than any of his hearers. And yet that preacher may
have a heart as white as Gabriel's wing and a soul full of love to
God and man. But as time goes on, and he lingers repeatedly at the
feet of Christ in prayer, God will show him how he can serve Him
more effectively and without the objectionable features.
UNJUST CRITICISM.
The fact that purity is not maturity has given rise to
misapprehension on the part of many people. Indeed, many of God's
dear children have been misjudged and condemned because they did
not have in addition to pure hearts sound and solid judgment. As
soon as a man professes the blessing of perfect love, the sharp-
eyed critics of the neighborhood look out for "perfect sense," and
"perfect manners," and "perfect life," and when the subject of
observation fails to meet the expectation of the aforesaid
critics, there is a great hue and cry that "Sister A. or Brother
B. has not got what is professed," when God knows they HAVE got
JUST what they profess--namely, perfect love, full salvation. The
Lord has never guaranteed a perfect head to any man that breathes.
We will make mistakes as long as we hang around this old world,
and it is injustice to exalted spirits who have this precious
grace, and an insult to the God who gave the grace, to condemn
sanctification because those who profess it are not angels, but
simply men and women cleansed and filled with the Spirit.
REPEATING MISTAKES.
But while God makes allowance for our weakness and our frailty, we
ought not to expect Him to indulge us in avoidable and needless
errors. We made a mistake. Very well. We knew no better than to
make it. But now that we do know better, we have no business
repeating it. And right along here comes a great expanse of
territory which holiness people need to cover. Here there is
infinite room for advancement and progress.
"THE IMITATION OF CHRIST"
Thomas A'Kempis wrote a wonderful book on "The Imitation of
Christ." The failure in so many quarters in becoming Christlike is
due to the false method pursued. First, get a Christlike heart,
and then let that heart govern your life and actions. "Work OUT
your own salvation," said Paul, "for it is God that worketh IN
you." Precisely! God puts a holy heart into a man's breast, and
his business from thence on is to bring his life into line with
the heart. The old life-habits may cling to him for a time, but it
is the business of the sanctified soul to free itself from all
that Jesus would not do were He on earth. Imitation of Christ
comes after sanctification, and not before. You simply can not
imitate Jesus if you have a reptile heart in you. If you have a
filthy mind you will talk "smut" and think "smut" in spite of
yourself. You may hide your bad self from the world, but your
wife, or your husband, or your family, those who are acquainted
with you intimately, know that you are base and coarse.
DANTE.
A glutton may stand and look at the thin, austere, ascetic face of
Dante and say within himself, "I will be a Dante," but all the
world knows that in a few hours he will be gourmandizing as
swinishly as before. And men look at the beautiful Jesus held up
in Unitarian pulpits and resolve to act like Him, and go right on
being selfish, and proud, and deceitful, and devilish. There must
be a moral miracle, there must be a spiritual upsetting and
overturning, before a carnal heart can begin to imitate the pure
and spotless Son of God.
KINDNESS.
After we are sanctified, we ought to imitate Christ in kindness.
How kind He was! Where did He abuse anyone? He preached the truth,
but He never maligned any of His auditors.
THE "LITTLE THINGS"
It is the "little things" that make up the mosaic of life. Our
friends know us, not by the speeches we deliver, nor the sermons
we preach, nor the books we write, but by the tones of our voices,
and the letters we pen, and the words we use in daily life.
Introduce kindness into a discordant family and how Eden-like the
home becomes! Why are we not as considerate and polite to those
who are all the world to us as we are to strangers and neighbors?
Christlike kindness would fill our hearts with thoughtfulness for
those about us. It would bid us carry a torch to many a darkened
life, and incite us to share the burden pressing upon many an
aching shoulder.
TRUE HUMILITY.
Christ had great charity for the faults of those with whom He was
associated. How He bore with the dull and almost stupid disciples!
How He bears with us in our worse and more inexcusable
blockheadedness! And, if He is so charitable and patient with our
faults, how ought we to be with others? There comes a time in our
lives when we are simply astonished that people pay any attention
to us at all. We are so conscious of our short-comings, and so
keenly aware of our mistakes, that it seems to us that surely no
one is quite so blundering and fallible as we are. How easy it is
then to bear with one another!
LOOKING-GLASS HUMILITY.
We ought to work humility out into our lives. Jesus lived an
humble life--a life of the truest and deepest humility. Not a
humility conscious of itself and ever gazing at itself through the
fancied eyes of others, but a humility that was real and
unaffected.
A CHRISTLIKE MAN.
The writer has in mind a man of deep and earnest piety, a scholar,
a successful preacher and author. With all his learning and
scholarship he is as humble as a child, and one can not look at
him without feeling, "There is a Christ-man." Often as the pen
flies quickly across the page, or as the lips are moving in the
delivery of a sermon, or as an altar service is in progress, the
slight, thin figure of that man flashes to the brain, and the eye
grows dim and the heart-prayer rises, "Lord, make me an humble
man." There are so many great men, eloquent men, learned men,
dignified men, but so few humble men. God, increase their number
in the land!
ACTIVITY.
Another thing in Jesus' life which sanctified people ought to
learn to imitate was His activity. His days, and even His nights,
frequently, were filled with service. After long days of teaching
and preaching, He would seek out some quiet nook and spend the
still and lonely hours of night in prayer to the Father.
THE INDIVIDUAL VISION.
Men who come into close touch and communion with Christ are
impelled irresistibly to earnest and ceaseless service. They see
needs which no one else seems to see. They hear the plaintive
voices of dying men, and the tearful cries of despondent women,
and the helpless moans of unloved children. They have visions
which others never understand, and dream of things with which
their dearest friends can not sympathize. They have given their
all that they may know Christ, and He has rewarded them by
disclosing His heart to them. They know why His face is tearful,
and His voice is filled with sadness. They know why He is "a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief." They are baptized into a
baptism of love for souls, and compassion for the sorrowing,
similar to that in which He is plunged. It is for this reason that
men hear the voice of God calling them away from the hearth-stone
out into the desolate earth.
ST. TELEMACHUS.
St. Telemachus heard the voice of God, and straightway "followed
the sphere of westward wheeling stars," and journeyed on to Rome
muttering, "The call of God! The call of God!" Not on a foolish
errand did he go, for, after his visit to the Eternal City,
gladiatorial combats ceased.
"HE THAT WARRETH"
Brethren, be true to Christ. Let not even those who love you best
draw you from a steadfast purpose to spend your life and all for
the Galilean. Flee ease and luxury and comfort, and impose hard
tasks upon yourselves. Your friends may seek to hinder you with
cries of, "Rest! Tarry!" but like Christian in Bunyan's dream stop
your ears and go quickly on your journey.
THE HOME COMING.
Some day your little service will be complete. Your sun will set.
The west will be filled with beauty, and the birds will twitter
softly in the trees as you trudge the last mile into the City; and
as the shades deepen, and the air grows chill, the Master Himself
will meet you, take you to His heart, wipe the tear from your
cheek, the dust of the road from your brow, and the sorrow from
your heart, and lead you to the court, where with those whom you
love, and those who love you, Eternity will be spent in the light
of His pure and shining face.
EXPERIENCE
THE VALUE OF TESTIMONY.
It has pleased God to place in our hands two weapons by which we
are to overcome Satan--"the blood of the Lamb, and the word of our
testimony." It was the narrated experiences of the people of God,
and the modest declarations of the saving power of Christ, which
convicted me of my need and led me to seek the grace of God. Very
briefly, therefore, I will sketch God's dealings with my own soul.
EARLY PRAYER.
I was born September 30th, 1877, at Westfield, Indiana. My parents
were both ministers in the Society of Friends, and I can not
remember When I first began to pray, for my mother taught me to go
to God with everything, even when a very small child. When I was
five and a half years of age we moved to Walnut Ridge, Indiana,
where there was a Friends' meeting of more than ordinary size and
activity. It was here that my conversion took place. I remember
the event as distinctly as if it were yesterday.
CONVICTION.
I always prayed at the family altar, and that was an institution
which was never neglected for anything in our home, and I had
never omitted my evening devotions; but one summer day while
playing by myself under the trees in the front yard, a great fear
came upon me lest I had never had a change of heart. Though less
than six years old, I had sat in the "gallery" behind my father as
he preached too often to be ignorant of the necessity of the new
birth. It was a perfect day, but conviction settled upon me more
and more deeply, and a dark shadow seemed to take the brightness
from everything. Unable to endure the heartache any longer, I ran
into the house and sat down with my father and mother, waiting in
silence for some time. Finally I asked them if I had "ever been
converted," told them I "wanted to be," and immediately we knelt
in prayer. How I did weep, and how badly I felt! I can see the
back of that little sewing-rocker now swimming in my tears. (I
wonder where that rocking-chair is now! The last I knew it was in
California, having left us at an auction--an occasion not
unfamiliar to most of preacher-families.) They told me to pray,
and I prayed with all my heart. If ever there was a little boy who
felt that he was a great sinner, I was the boy. I remembered all
the things I ever did that I knew were wrong. My boyish
wickednesses, things that seem a rather absurd lot now in the
light of the sins of the average lad of six that I know to-day,
caused me great pain. Soon peace came, and what happiness! When I
went out doors again the very birds twittered with increased
gladness, and the sky seemed a far deeper blue, and the grass and
flowers rejoiced with me in my new-found experience.
RETROGRESSION.
Would God I had retained my simple faith in Jesus! But it was not
long before I wandered away from Christ, and the life of
prayerfulness and obedience. For years my religious experience was
most unsatisfactory. I was under frequent convictions, and knew
that the Spirit was striving with me persistently, but I hardened
my heart and would not yield completely to God. As I look back at
those years of restlessness and rebellion, I recall with gratitude
the forbearance and long-suffering of a now sainted mother. How
she carried her proud, stubborn boy on her heart, and how she held
onto God's skirt and tugged away until He answered.
THE STRIVING OF THE SPIRIT.
During the winter of 1891-1892 I became almost wretched on account
of conviction. The Holy Ghost fairly dogged my steps and whispered
in my ear at every turn. There were many things which He used to
convict me of--my unfaithfulness and aridity of soul and life. My
junior year at Oak Grove Seminary is distinctly remembered as a
time of continuous conviction and unrest. Now and then I would
find peace and comfort for a time, but they remained only for a
time. I kept up secret devotions very carefully. I never missed my
daily prayers, but my life was inconsistent and God-dishonoring.
The lives of real Christians rebuked me, and the mockery of my
empty profession haunted me like a spectre.
RECLAMATION.
In the summer of 1892 I began to seek God earnestly, and was not
long in finding pardon and reclamation. No sooner was I at peace
with God than I began to hunger for holiness. O, how my heart
longed for full salvation! I saw much about me that was an
indication that there was an experience enjoyed by some of which I
was not possessed. My mother's calm, victorious life, and her
constant unwavering Christian faith, convicted me. I was proud and
selfish, and hypersensitive and ambitious. She was restful,
contented, loving, meek. How frequently I gave way to some
temptation, and how mortified I was to be so humiliated by the
Adversary.
HUNGER FOR HOLINESS.
Many of the members of my father's church at Portsmouth had an
experience of freedom and liberty which I craved. In July my
father, my mother, and I spent a couple of days at Douglas camp-
meeting. I remember so well every incident of the trip--my deep
unrest as we entered the grounds, my aversion to certain
"boisterous persons" who said "Bless the Lord" so frequently, my
disrelish for food, my dislike of taking a front seat in the
audience. Two old sisters sat facing the preacher one evening.
Their faces were full of joy, and they seemed to overflow with joy
and spiritual exhilaration. I inwardly said, "I wish I had an
experience like they seem to have." I made up my mind I would
seek. I can not recall a word of the sermon. I do not think I
heard it at the time--my mind was so full of an inward struggle.
CANDIDATE FOR SANCTIFICATION.
When the call was made, I went forward and consecrated myself and
all my hopes and desires and longings and all to God. How in the
world I had ever acquired so low a desire I do not know, but my
chief ambition had been to be a professor of science in some
college. But the Lord put me through a series of questions:
"Will you be my property henceforth?"
"Yes, Lord."
"Are you willing that people should call you a 'holiness crank'?"
"Yes, Lord."
"Supposing I should ask you to shout, would you?"
"I would do my best at it."
"Will you give up all your plans and be a one-horse preacher of
holiness if I want you to?"
Ah, here was a rub, indeed. Preaching was precisely what I did not
relish. Anything rather than that. I had visions of small
salaries, and country churches, and long, cold rides. I had seen
the life of the preacher ever since I could remember. I debated
the question. Then I answered, "Yes." The audience was singing: