01. Spiritual Awakening and Declension

SPIRITUAL AWAKENING AND DECLENSION 1. SPIRITUAL AWAKENING For the first twenty years of my life, I resided in the town of Bedford, noted for its association with John Bunyan, and I am glad to say that I had the great blessing of being brought up in a Christian home. My parents belonged to the Christians known as “Exclusive Brethren,” and from the very first I used to attend the meetings regularly at the little meeting room.

Brought up in such a Christian atmosphere, I was taught to revere the Bible as God’s Word and I became acquainted with the truths of the gospel at a very early age. My spiritual awakening commenced, too, when I was young. I learned the difference between being “saved” and “unsaved,” and became concerned as to whether I was among the “saved.”

There were times when the thoughts of death, judgment, and eternity troubled me very much. I did not feel I was ready for these dread events. I remember once hearing a preacher preach on the three stages of the new birth, which he said were conviction, confession, and conversion. I suppose I was only about eleven or twelve years of age at the time and I was troubled because I could not say that I had passed through these three stages.. Other preachers used to I speak about repentance, and mention instances of persons who had undergone times of great soul distress because of conviction of sin, and had then experienced wonderful joy when they were converted. How I wished I could experience such a wonderful change! If only I could pass through something like that, I should know at I was saved. Sometimes I felt troubled because I thought I had not been miserable enough on account of sin. And yet, as I look back after many years, I realize that I was under conviction for sin, although I did not fully understand it at the time. Spiritually I was at “Mount Sinai.” God was an infinitely holy Being, and I felt myself to be unfit for His presence. I feared Him but could not say that I loved Him, as I did not feel assured of His love to me personally. At other times I felt relieved when the preacher explained that all that was needed for salvation was to take God at His Word and believe in Christ as Savior. Could I really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for myself and be saved, without having first to pass through a time of deep conviction and repentance? That is what perplexed me. I wanted to believe and be saved; but then I wanted to be real, and wondered whether I must wait until I had repented enough before I could truly say I was saved. One Monday morning, when I was twelve or thirteen years of age, I came down to breakfast thinking very deeply over the gospel message of the previous night. I went quietly into a room by myself. This is how my mind was working. It says in John 3:16, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” I thought: These are God’s own words, and He says “whosoever.” That means me, and surely, if I believe in Christ as my Savior for myself, then God’s Word says I shall have everlasting life. Dare I rest on this Word and believe what God says? Could I make the venture in faith? Yes, I could, I will, I do believe that Christ died for me, and that, because God says it, I have everlasting life. I was striving to get right with God according to the measure of light I then possessed. I believe there was within me the seed of faith, although it was only like a grain of mustard seed. It was the weak, trembling faith of a boy anxious about his soul, and striving to find some resting place on God’s own Word. After making this venture of faith, I tried to confess the Lord Jesus Christ both in the home and at school I talked to my schoolmates about Christ and salvation and warned them about judgment to come.

Once I got quite a crowd of boys around me in the school ground at playtime and talked to them about Christ. One of the masters saw the crowd of boys and came up to inquire what it was all about. I stepped up to him and replied, “I am telling the boys about Christ Jesus.” He said, “Go off and play with the other boys.” Another teacher was more sympathetic. He took me quietly aside by myself. “Well, Brockett,” he said, “what is it you have been telling the boys?” I replied, “I have been telling them, sir, about the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. 2. SPIRITUAL, DECLENSION In spite of this, however, I did not possess the full assurance faith. My inward experience was very “up and down”; I was at times torn between hopes and fears as to my salvation. Then trouble arose in the little meeting I attended owing to divisions on doctrinal matters, and eventually four different and conflicting sections of the Brethren met separately in the same town. These divisions were a stumbling block to me as a boy, and gradually I drifted away from the Brethren meetings altogether. Then when I left school and entered into an office I became absorbed in other things. I had to study for examinations, I took a keen interest in politics, and played an active part in a local debating society. This debating society was known as “The Bedford Parliament,” and I think I was the youngest member, about seventeen years old. I was made “Chancellor of the Exchequer” in a “Liberal Government,” and I used to wonder whether I might grow up to be a real cabinet minister! This youthful dream has not, however, materialized! The proceedings of the “Parliament” were reported in the local press, and I was very flattered when notes of my speeches actually appeared in print. Once a dinner was held at which a real member of Parliament was actually present, together with a town councilor and other important local persons. After-dinner speeches were made, and I proposed the toast of “The Bedford Parliament.” I got loud applause when I sat down and I was referred to in the local press as “a promising young speaker.” I had “swelled head” for some time after that. During all this time, however, I was really in a backslidden state of soul. All these activities stifled my spiritual life, and I lost my interest in the Bible and the things of God. Once an old schoolmate met me and said, “Well, Brockett, are you a Christian now?” I felt somewhat ashamed and did not know what to say, so far had I backslidden in my inner life. But I declined still further until at last I was lost in the fog of unbelief. One day I came across a book written by a clergyman in which he stated that the stories of the creation and the fall of man in the Bible were not literally true, and he mentioned evolution. This book aroused my curiosity and started me on a new quest. I thought to myself, If even Christian ministers have doubts about the Bible, I must look into this matter and find out the truth. The first drops of the poison of unbelief had been injected into my heart. I read Darwin’s Origin of Species and Descent of Man, Huxley’s and Haeckel’s works, Herbert Spencer’s Synthetic Philosophy, Colenso on the Pentateuch, Tom Paine’s Age of Reason, and other writings on Biblical criticism and evolution. I was about eighteen or nineteen at the time and, of course, my faith in the Bible was undermined and I ceased to read it as before. I argued about the Bible and tried to show that it contained contradictions. When I was in this state of soul, a Christian once warned me and said to me “Young man, if you go on as you are, it will lead to the destruction of your soul.” I paid no heed, however, to this warning. I was not going to accept even the Bible merely because I had been brought up to believe it was all the Word of God. I was going to think for myself. I now was acquainted with modern thought and had superior knowledge, so I imagined. Little did I realize that my unbelieving, critical attitude to the Bible was the result of the corrupt workings of my natural mind, carnality, the “mind of the flesh,” which is enmity against God. This so-called “modern thought” puffed me up and my heart was hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. This was the sad, dark state of soul I had fallen into; and yet six years before I had, as a young boy, boldly witnessed for Christ. The filling of my mind with evolutionary literature and Biblical criticism had brought me into spiritual darkness. But it is with a heart full of adoring gratitude to the God of infinite grace that I can testify that I was not left by Him to remain in this state of darkness. After a time, I lost even pleasure in evolutionary and skeptical books, and began to feel utterly dissatisfied. “What is my destiny? Why am I in the world at all?

What is the meaning of the universe?” These were the questions I asked myself and had lost the answer. Once I went for a quiet country walk, thinking over the problem of the universe and myself. I felt I was like a poor, wandering sheep lost in the darkness, and from my heart there was wrung the prayer, “O God give me light.” God had mercy on my soul and in wonderful grace He answered that prayer. (I relate in the next chapter how the light came and how I was restored to settled faith in Christ.)