MY
EXPERIENCE.
[Continued.]
BY A. W. P.
“Now may the very God of
peace sanctify you wholly… Faithful is He that calleth you Who will do it.”
In my last
chapter I alluded to the fact that a messenger of God was sent to me at the
very moment of my deep spiritual need. Hearing rapid steps on our front walk, I
looked out and saw a man approaching, evidently absorbed in thought, for as he
walked he was humming snatches of a hymn. I was entirely alone in the house at
the time of this occurrence, the other members of the family having left town,
and I had given the servants permission to go to a wedding. I was about to say
that all this chanced to be so, but I
don’t believe there is any such thing
as chance in this world. I think God’s hand is in what seems to us to be the
most trifling events of life. And surely this was one of the most crucial hours
of my life, when my soul was tossed about upon the waves of doubt and despair,
and there seemed no light, no deliverance for me anywhere. If I had not been
entirely alone in the house, the interview which followed, closing with prayer,
could not possibly have occurred as we would have been liable to many interruptions.
I do not recollect that I was ever left in that way before in my life as it had
never been our custom to allow both servants to be absent at the same time. I
dwell upon this to show that the Lord wonderfully arranged and planned every
circumstance connected with this interview.
I felt a little
timid about answering the door-bell, and hesitated about doing so, but finally
went and as I looked through the screen door I saw such a pleasant, honest face
that I felt re-assured and opened it. Finding that he had come upon business, I
asked him to walk in. We were entire strangers he not even knowing whose
residence it was.
Something in his
general demeanor caused me to look at him wonderingly with a vague presentiment
that something of importance was about to occur. After finishing his errand he
lingered, seemingly unwilling to lave, and suddenly noticing a religious book
upon the table, he took it up and, after running over its pages, quietly seated
himself and began to talk about the holiness
of heart! He told me he had been one of the worst of men, addicted to
almost every vice, that at the time of his conversation he was an actor in a
third-rate theatre, but was suddenly arrested in his downward course by the
Holy Spirit and brought under deep conviction of sin. He was happily converted,
forsook all his evil habits and started out in an earnest Christian life. He
felt much joy and peace at times, but after continuing in the Christian life.
He felt much joy and peace at times, but after continuing in the Christian race
after a few years he discovered that he was not wholly delivered form sin, but
that he many times found himself taken captive by the adversary, which was a
source of much grief and shame to him, but which he was wholly unable to prevent.
He found himself to be in the condition of the man described in Rom. vii:18-19,
“For to will is present with me, but
how to perform that which is good I
find not. For the good that I would,
I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would
not, it is no more I that do it but
in sin that dwelleth in me.” He saw
that he had not “reckoned himself to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God”
as we are commanded to do, and felt that he had known little of “the glorious
liberty of the Children of God” which it is the privilege of every one of His
children to enjoy. The more he searched the World the more clearly he saw his
need of that purity of heart without which “no man shall see God.” He was
plunged into the most terrible conflict with the devil at this point, and the battle
raged so furiously for several days that he actually feared that reason would
be dethroned. Indeed he became so desperate that at last he entered his home
one day with the determination to put an end to the life of his wife and then
his own. But the calm innocence of her face as she sat with her infant on her
lap and looked up wonderingly at him, quite disarmed him, and he turned and
rushed out of the house. There was one dark stain upon his life before his
conversation which he had never confessed to his wife, and now the Holy Spirit
continually whispered, “Go and tell her all,” but Satan would quickly reply,
that if he did so, she would surely cast
him off forever, and thus he would lose the wife and child he so dearly
loved. This thought it was which almost drove him to madness as he walked the
streets battling with his contending emotions.
Finally he cried
out in anguish that he would go and make a full confession, and if the Lord saw
fit to strip him of wife and child and all he possessed, he would bow to His
will; and so imploring His help, he returned to his home. Trembling and with
many tears he told to his astonished wife his story, and was overwhelmed with
gratitude and surprise to hear her say at once that she freely forgave it all! How the enemy loves to make us think that
the commands of our God are “grievous” and His yoke heavy to be borne, and
thereby would discourage us from following the leading of the Holy Spirit. If
we will simply obey, “looking neither
to the right hand nor to the left,” we will invariably find that a blessing
rather than a cross awaits us, as in case of this brother.
With streaming
eyes they knelt together, and while in prayer and praise he felt that every
chain was broken and his soul set free in Christ. He had in humility and faith
come to Jesus and laid all at His
feet, and thus coming emptied of self
, he was in a condition to be filled with the Holy Ghost. From that moment he
set out joyfully in “the way of holiness,” feeling that henceforth he would
trust in Jesus to carry on the
blessed work begun in his heart, and to daily cleanse and keep him from all
sin. “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
cleanse us form all unrighteousness.”
His countenance beamed with light and joy as he related to me how he had ever
since been “kept by the power of God unto salvation,” and had been enabled to
overcome the assaults of the enemy every step of the way. He then took from his
pocket a testament and read to me the 3rd chapter of 1st
John-that wonderful chapter which I had heretofore read with eyes that saw not!
Oh how my hungry, aching heart drank in the words “Ye know that He was
manifested to take away our sins”!
“Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not.” He
that committeth sin is of the devil. For this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil!” Blessed be God for those strong
words of encouragement; how many a fainting heart have they helped to seek full
deliverance in the Son of God! A gleam of light-a faint ray of hope dawned upon
me. It almost seemed as I listened that this blessed salvation was for poor,
unworthy me. It was evident that it
was precisely what I needed and what I was stretching out my hands in the
darkness to find.
(To be continued.)
