Chapter Five: Centering On Christ

Chapter 5.
Centering on Christ

I have found in my own spiritual life that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit. The habit of regular morning and evening prayer is one that is indispensable to a believer's life; however, to prescribe the length of prayer and to try to remember many persons and subjects may lead to bondage and may strangle prayer rather than assist it. To say I will humble myself at such a time and rejoice at such another season is almost as artificial as when the preacher wrote in the margin of his sermon, "Cry here," "Smile here." Why, if the man preached from his heart, he would be sure to cry in the right place and to smile at a suitable moment. Likewise, when the spiritual life is sound, it produces prayer at the right time; and humiliation of soul and sacred joy spring forth spontaneously, apart from rules and vows. The kind of religion that makes itself to order by the almanac and turns out its emotions like bricks from a machine, weeping on Good Friday and rejoicing two days afterwards, measuring its motions by the moon, is too artificial to be worthy of my imitation.

Self-examination is a very great blessing, but I have known self-examination to be carried on in a most unbelieving, legal, and self-righteous manner; in fact, I have done it that way myself. Time was when I used to think a vast deal more of marks and signs and evidences than I do now, for I find that I cannot be a match for the Devil when I begin dealing in these things. I am obliged to go from day to day with this cry:

I, the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me.

All goes well with me when I believe the promise of God simply because it is His promise. All goes well when I trust my Savior simply because He is God and, therefore, mighty to save. I do find, however, when I begin questioning myself about this and that perplexity, thus taking my eye off Christ, that all the virtue of my life seems to ooze out at every pore. Any practice that detracts from faith is an evil practice, but that kind of self-examination that would take us away from the foot of the cross is especially misleading. When I first knew the Savior, I used to examine myself in a certain manner. I often threw stumbling blocks in my path through it; therefore, I can warn any who are doing the same. Sometimes I would go up to my room, and by way of self-examination, I used to ask myself these questions: "Am I afraid to die? If I would drop down dead in my room, can I say that I would joyfully close my eyes?"

Well, it often happened that I could not honestly say so. I used to feel that death would be a very solemn thing. "Ah, then!" I said, "I have never believed in Christ; for if I had put my trust in the Lord Jesus, I would not be afraid to die, but I would be quite confident."

I do not doubt that many people are saying, "I cannot follow Christ because I am afraid to die. I cannot believe that Jesus Christ will save me because the thought of death makes me tremble." Ah, poor soul, there are many of God's blessed ones who through fear of death have spent much of their lifetime in bondage! I know precious children of God that I believe will die triumphantly when they die, but I know that the thought of death is never pleasing to them. This fear of death can be accounted for by the fact that God has stamped on nature a law; it is the law of love of life and self-preservation. It is natural enough that the man who has kindred and friends would hardly like to leave behind those who are so dear. I know that when he gets more grace, he will rejoice in the thought of death; but I do know that there are many quite safe who will die rejoicing in Christ, but who now, in the prospect of death, feel afraid of it. My aged grandfather once preached a sermon that I have never forgotten. He was preaching from the text, "The God of all grace" (1 Peter 5:10). After describing the different kinds of grace that God gave, he somewhat interested the assembly by saying at the end of each period, "But there is one kind of grace that you do not want." After each part of his theme, there came the same sentence, "But there is one kind of grace that you do not want." And then he wound up by saying, "You don't want dying grace in living moments, but you will have dying grace when you need it. When you are in the condition that requires it, you will have grace enough if you put your trust in Christ." In a group of friends, we were discussing the question of whether we were prepared to be burned if the days of martyrdom came. I said, "I must frankly tell you that, speaking as I feel today, I am not prepared to be burned. But I do believe that if there were a stake at Smithfield, and I knew that I were to be burned there at one o'clock, I would have enough grace to be burned there when one o'clock came." In my younger days, I was much impressed by hearing a minister, blind with age, speak at the communion table. He told us who had just joined the church that it was good that we had come to put our trust in a faithful God. As the good man, with great feebleness and yet with great earnestness, said to us that he had never regretted giving himself to Christ as a boy, I felt my heart leap within me with delight that I had such a God to be my God. A younger man could not have given that testimony. He might have spoken more fluently, but the weight of those eighty years at the back of it made the old man eloquent to my young heart. For twenty years, he had not seen the light of the sun. His snow-white hair hung from his brow and floated over his shoulders. He stood up at the table of the Lord and addressed us with these words: "Brothers and sisters, I will soon be taken from you. In a few more months, I will lie down on my bed and sleep with my fathers. I do not have the mind of the learned nor the tongue of the eloquent; but I desire, before I go, to bear one public testimony to my God. Fifty-six years I have served Him, and I have never once found Him unfaithful. I can say, 'Surely goodness and mercy [have followed] me all the days of my life' (Psalms 23:6), and 'not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the LORD [my] God [promised]' (Joshua 23:14)."

There stood that dear old man, tottering into his tomb, naturally deprived of the light of heaven, and yet having the Light of Heaven in a better sense shining into his soul. Though he could not look upon us, he turned towards us, and he seemed to say, "Young people, trust God in early life, for I do not have the regret that I sought Him too soon. I only mourn that so many of my years went to waste."

There is nothing that tends to strengthen the faith of the young believer more than to hear the veteran Christian, covered with scars from the battle, say, "The service of my Master is a happy service. If I could have served any other master, I would not have done so; for His service is pleasant, and His reward is everlasting joy." In my early days, I knew a good man who has now gone to his reward, who was the means of producing, under God, a library of useful lives. I do not mean books in paper, but books in boots! Many young men came to the Lord by his means, and they became preachers, teachers, deacons, and other workers. No one would be amazed at this if he knew the man who trained them. He was ready for every good word and work, but he gave special attention to his Bible class, in which he presented the Gospel with clearness and zeal.

Whenever any one of his young men left the country town in which he lived, he would be sure to arrange a parting interview. There was a wide-spreading oak down in the fields, and there he was accustomed to keeping an early morning appointment with John or Thomas or William. That appointment consisted of a great deal of earnest pleading with the Lord that, in going up to the great city, the young man might be kept from sin and be made useful. Under that tree, several decided to come to the Savior. It was an impressive act and left its influence on them, for many men came in later years to see the spot made sacred by their teacher's prayers.

Oh, how my young heart ached this one time in boyhood soon after I came to love the Savior. I was far away from father and mother and all I loved, and I thought my heart would break. I was an usher in a school, in a place where I could find little sympathy or help. Well, I went to my room and told my little griefs into the ears of Jesus. They were great griefs to me then, though they are nothing now. When on my knees, I just whispered them into the ear of Him who had loved me with an everlasting love. Oh, it was so sweet! If I had told them to others, they would have repeated them; but He, my blessed Confidant, knows all my secrets, and He never repeats them.

There is one verse of Scripture that, as a young believer, I used to repeat often, for it was very dear to me. It is this: "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar" (Psalms 118:27). I did feel then that I was wholly Christ's. In the marriage covenant of which the Lord speaks, when the Husband put the ring upon His bride's finger, He said to her, "You have become Mine." I remember when I felt upon my finger the ring of infinite, everlasting, covenant love that Christ put there. Oh, it was a joyful day, a blessed day! Happy day, happy day, when His choice was known to me, and He fixed my choice on Him! That blessed rest of soul that comes from a sure possession of Christ is not to be imitated, but it is greatly to be desired.

I know that some good people, who I believe will be saved, nevertheless do not attain to this sweet rest. They keep on thinking that it is something that they may get when they are very old or when they are about to die; but they look upon the full assurance of faith and the personal grasping of Christ and saying, "My beloved is mine" (Song of Solomon 2:16), as something very dangerous.

I began my Christian life in a happy fashion as a boy, fifteen years of age. I believed fully and without hesitation in the Lord Jesus Christ. When I went to see a good Christian woman, I was simple enough to tell her that I believed in Christ, that He was mine, and that He had saved me. I expressed myself very confidently concerning the great truth that God would never forsake His people nor leave His work undone. The good woman at once scolded me and told me that I had no right to speak so confidently, for it was presumptuous. She said to me, "Ah! I don't like such assurance as that." Then she added, "I trust you are believing in Christ—I hope so—but I have never got beyond a hope or a trust, and I am an old woman."

Bless the old woman, she was no example for us who "know whom [we] have believed" (2 Timothy 1:12). We ought to rise far above that groveling kind of life. The man who begins right, the boy who begins right, and the girl who begins right will begin by saying, "God has said it: 'He that believeth on him is not condemned' (John 3:18). I believe on Him; therefore, I am not condemned. Christ is mine."

Before my conversion, I was accustomed to reading the Scriptures to admire their grandeur, to feel the charm of their history, and to wonder at the majesty of their language; but I altogether missed the Lord's intent therein. But when the Spirit came with His divine life and quickened all of the Book to my newly enlightened soul, the inner meaning shone forth with wondrous glory.

I was not in a frame of mind to judge God's Word; I accepted it all without hesitation. I did not venture to sit in judgment upon my Judge. I did not dare to become the reviser of the unerring God. Whatever I found to be in His Word, I received with intense joy.

I thank God that I have been happy from that hour. I am not saying that I am exempt from trouble. I am especially not free from a tendency to despondency that is always with me. However, I rejoice and will rejoice. I am happy, unspeakably happy, in resting upon Jesus Christ. Moreover, I have found that those points of my character that were most weak have been strengthened, while strong passions have been subdued, evil tendencies have been kept under, and new principles have been implanted.

I am changed. I am as different from what I was as a man who had been annihilated and had then been made over again. I do not claim any of the credit for this change—far from it. God has done great things for me, but He has done the same for others. He is willing to do great things for any soul that seeks His face through Jesus Christ and His great atoning sacrifice.

I have known some men who were almost mentally retarded before conversion, but afterwards they had their faculties wonderfully developed. Some time ago, there was a man who was so uneducated that he could not read. He never spoke anything close to proper grammar in his life, unless by mistake. But when he was converted, the first thing he did was pray. He stammered out a few words, and in a little time his powers of speaking began to develop themselves. Then he thought he would like to read the Scriptures. After long, long months of labor, he learned to read. And what was the next thing? He thought he could preach. He did preach a little, in his own simple way, in his house. Then he thought, "I must read a few more books." And so his mind expanded. I believe that now he is a useful minister, settled in a country village, laboring for God. An idea has long possessed the public mind that a religious man can hardly be a wise man. It has been the custom to talk of infidels, atheists, and deists as men of deep thought and comprehensive intellect and, at the same time, to tremble for the Christian controversialist as if he must surely fall by the hand of his enemy. But this is purely a mistake. The Gospel is the sum of wisdom, an epitome of knowledge, a treasure-house of truth, and a revelation of mysterious secrets. In it, we see how justice and mercy may be married. Here we behold unbending law entirely satisfied and sovereign love bearing away the sinner in triumph. Our meditation upon it enlarges the mind. As the Gospel opens to our soul in successive flashes of glory, we stand astonished at the profound wisdom manifested in it.

I have often said that before I knew the Gospel, I had gathered up a jumbled mass of all kinds of knowledge from here, there, and everywhere—a bit of chemistry, a bit of botany, a bit of astronomy, and a bit of this, that, and the other. I put them all together in one great confused chaos. But when I learned the Gospel, I got a shelf in my head on which to put everything just where it should be.

It seemed to me as if, when I had discovered Christ and Him crucified, I had found the center of the system so that I could see every other science revolving in due order. From the earth, the planets appear to move in a very irregular manner; they are progressive, retrograde, or stationary. But if you could stand on the sun, you would see them marching around in their constant, uniform, circular motion. So it is with knowledge. Begin with any other science you like, and truth will seem to be all awry. Begin with the science of Christ crucified, and you will begin with the sun; you will see every other science moving around it in complete harmony. The greatest mind in the world will be developed by beginning at the right end. The old saying is, "Go from nature up to nature's God," but it is hard work going uphill. The best thing is to go from nature's God down to nature. If you once get to nature's God and believe Him and love Him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds. If you believe in God, it is easy to see God everywhere—in the stones, in the rocks, in the rippling brooks. It is easy to hear Him everywhere—in the lowing of cattle, in the rolling of thunders, and in the fury of tempests.

Christ is to me the wisdom of God. I can learn everything now that I know the science of Christ crucified.