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“As for me, I will behold They face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awaken with Thy likeness.” Psalm 17:15.
It is absolutely impossible to satisfy the natural man. He finds no satisfaction in his pursuit of sinful pleasure; neither does he find happiness in the broken promises of sinful indulgence. A voice within him cries that if he will only walk the path of some new self indulgence, he will find satisfaction waiting to greet him at the end of the trail. But all he discovers is disillusionment and sorrow. That is the technique of fleshly pleasure and the unrestrained flow of the Adamic nature. It promises so much but gives so little. It promises to increase your earthly possession but leaves you poor indeed. We must recognize also that the natural man is never satisfied with grace or truth. He can struggle to be very religious; but his acquired attainments become burdens which are heavy to be borne.
“The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” The law was given; but grace and truth came. The law showed us what we ought to be to God. Grace tells us what God is to us. The first word of law is THOU; but the first word of grace and truth is GOD. Law emphasized what we should do for Him; but grace
breaks like a sunrise over a darkened universe and tells us what God has done for us!
We do not have to go back under the Mosaic law to become legalists. The churches are filled with poor, struggling souls who have never heard the cry: “IT IS FINISHED!” It came with the sweetness of the music of heaven from out the din and noise and contentions which surrounded Calvary. They still struggle on attempting to do what is already done and endeavoring to accomplish that which has been already completely and perfectly consummated.
No man can be satisfied until he stands with his surrendered will and yielded mind in the beautiful light which streams like a glory-shaft from the Cross. How that light pierces to the very center of his being! How it illumines the things he himself has been trying to hide! How futile seem his works! How useless his own endeavors! How empty his own theological phrases and how ridiculous his own effort at self-improvement! It takes GRACE to reveal our sinful natures.
The Christian legalist forgets what he really is as he looks all the while at what he is trying to become. Remember it is only the pure stream which will satisfy. The adulterated waters of which we have been drinking have never really taken the thirst away. They have been part of God and part of self. They have been an adulteration of the insufficient efforts of man and the completed work of Calvary. We do not deprecate works as long as they are His. Your works are not sufficient; and neither are mine! My life is not enough; neither is yours. His life and His alone will suffice. There will be works--a multitude of them; but they will be the mighty, moving operations of Him who dwells within. How sweet it would be if we could all come to the place where we could say with Jesus, “The works I do I do not of Myself.” “The words I say are not Mine.” Can the human will climb to the sublime heights of holiness by self attainment? We can never become like Jesus by human effort, we can only be made like Him. When at last we shall appear in HIS LIKENESS, it will not be because of the labor of our hands or the works of reason, intellect or flesh. The Hands which will sculptor the vessel which was marred in the hands of the potter, back into its original image, have nail-prints in them! His Hands and His alone! Not yours! Not mine!
Crossing the Line
Is it not a struggle to be satisfied with dissatisfaction? Yet so many are attempting to do that. It is part of their religious principle and they rather glory in the life of continuous crucifixion which never quite reaches its goal. We can go religiously to church and criticize the sermon and the preacher. We can abstain from fleshly lusts and be externally honest and respectable. But there comes a moment when we cross the boundary line which separates such labor and struggling from the beautiful place of PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION with our crucified and resurrected Lord. True holiness is not what you do but what you are. If it were measured by the sum total of your accomplishments, it would be YOUR holiness and that has always been
as filthy rags in the eyes of God. When it is what you ARE, it becomes HIS HOLINESS, and it has a pull which is greater than the gravitational pull of the planets. It lifts us out of the sordid and the fleshly,--out of the material and the earthly, into realms that are supernal. There we can walk and talk with Him who loved us and enjoy the sweet fellowship which was broken by the Fall but restored by Grace.
Ecclesiastes 1:8 says, “All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” These were the words of the preacher in Jerusalem who was the son of David and who, sitting in the midst of his riches declared, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” Life was such a struggle! Though a man be called from tending his father's flocks in the humble position of a shepherd boy to be placed upon a throne with a crown upon his head and a scepter in his hand, there was nothing in it which would really satisfy! Hunted like an outlaw, and fleeing more than once for his very life, he knew the emptiness of fame and the hollow mockery of human praise.
“I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” What words are these which come out of the golden age of Solomon. In spite of the wealth, all was vanity. In spite of wisdom, all was vexation of spirit. No matter with what riches and glory and fame he was surrounded, he lived his empty life and tried to comfort his unsatisfied soul!
The truth is that a man's world is not outside; but within. In restlessness of spirit, we run after external things and do our best to possess them in the false belief that they will satisfy. The grass always seems to be greener over the fence. Know ye not that within you are the potentialities of a universe? If only we knew it, there is our world! There begins our heaven! There is the dwelling place of God! There the streams of living water flow! Externally, we can live midst the most unpretentious surroundings; but within our feet are walking the trails which wind around the hills of Beulah. So marvellous are the panoramas of heavenly beauty which open to our view; as we are changed from glory unto glory by the presence of the One who dwells within.
Our Deliverance
The reaches of heaven go farther than our conception of the boundaries of the Father's House, our Home Eternal, in the land of endless day. How sweet the rest; how heavenly the atmosphere when in actuality we lay our every burden at His feet. Where Jesus is, 'tis heaven there. He has promised never to leave us--never to leave us alone! “The Lord knoweth the days of the upright and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.” Psalm 37:18, 19. What a prophetic promise is this! What a rich inheritance for the saints of God! What freedom from bondage! What deliverance
from fear! The shackles are broken; the dungeon flames with light!
Like Peter we are led out from our captivity into a glorious liberty so wonderful we begin to wonder, as did he, whether or not it is all a dream. All he contributed to his deliverance was obedience. He did not try to pick the lock. He did not have to kill his jailers. He did not have to spend the night-watches fretting as to how he was going to lead himself out to freedom. In sublime confidence and trust he went to sleep He left it with his Lord. That was the secret of his deliverance. Was He dreaming? Was the miracle of His deliverance real? A prison, which could not hold his Lord, could not hold him. He discovered that the thing he could not do for himself was done for him.
But I hear a song: Sing it, David! Let the first glimmer of the eternal truth, which came into your kingly heart, shine down the corridors of the years until it shines on men of open vision in the day in which we live. “They shall not be ashamed in the EVIL TIME!” When the hour of testing comes--when the world falls into the pit of its own digging--when the dark shadows of tribulation come like a funeral pall over an apostate church and a Christ rejecting world, there will be a little company of people WHO WILL NOT BE ASHAMED! They are going to be the living exponents of that promise which declares that “one shall chase a thousand and two shall put ten thousand to flight.” The manifestation of the divine Presence in the redeemed Sons of God is going to render them impervious to the darts of the adversary and all the wiles of iniquitous men and demons.
You need not be afraid! When the evil time comes, there will be no need for you to be ashamed. He will not let you down. Let others glory in their self-righteousness. Keep your glory in the Cross on which your Saviour died! In our flesh dwelleth no good thing and 'mid the impotency of will and the frailty of resolution, our strength not only comes from Christ; it is Christ! Our wisdom is not only something imparted by Him. He Himself is our Wisdom. Our righteousness is not something He helps us to build, like a cathedral, on the foundations of our deeds. He Himself is our righteousness. Our sanctification is not something to which we can testify after we have been delivered from some inherent tendencies. No--He is our sanctification! It is His Voice which stills the troubled Galilee waters of your spirit and feeds you with HIMSELF!
What a privilege it is for us to enter into this rest. It is not lethargy! It is not idleness! It is not a life void of accomplishment! It is a life which has come to the full recognition that Christ can do more in five minutes, through our yielded surrendered hearts and minds, than we can accomplish in five thousand years by self effort.
“To Him I owe my life and breath,
And all the joys I have.
He makes me triumph over death,
He saves me from the grave.
Since from His bounty I receive
Such proofs of love divine,
Had I a thousand hearts to give,
Lord, they should all be Thine.”
A Paradox
Satisfied! The glory of this indwelt life is that it makes us satisfied in the present and yet creates an intense hunger. What a divine paradox! SATISFIED yet HUNGRY! SATISFIED yet THIRSTY! The sweet singer of Israel declared in the 65th Psalm and the 4th verse, “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest and causeth to approach unto Thee that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.” That was actually true but typically sublime. David himself had entered into a beautiful place of fellowship with his Lord. If he could be so satisfied with God, in a temple made with hands; how great should be our satisfaction, when we know He dwells within. Acknowledge Him. Recognize Him. Crown Him. He is priest and King!
How sweet the song the Psalmist sang in the days of works and law. But we are not under law; we are under grace. The temple of David's day was a type of the temple in which God dwells in our time. Know ye not that ye are the temples of the Living God? Know ye not that the tabernacle of God is with men? You can build a million cathedrals for His glory; but you cannot confine Him there. I am not saying that He does not enter them; but I am declaring that He does not dwell there.
The only earthly dwelling place of our Lord Jesus is your heart, Blood-washed and consecrated to His indwelling. He lives! Not in temples made with hands. He lives! He weeps! He rules! He loves Within our hearts!! So, we sing with David, “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest.” What have we done to deserve it? What have we accomplished to merit it? Has it been brought about by the labor of our hands--the walking of our feet--or the ministry of our years? Did we manufacture the light of revelation which revealed our Lord in His seamless robe of light and truth and grace? Was it not a heavenly visitation which rolled the scales from our eyes and led us to the glorious liberation we are enjoying as the redeemed sons of God?
Can you not hear Him speak? “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.” Did He not, “cause us to approach unto Him?” It was when He came to us that we were satisfied. It was not what we were able to offer to Him. It was not our ministry for Him. It was His ministry for us which brought this peace within our breast and this satisfaction which is in our hearts! We are His living Temple. We are conscious daily of H is lovely Presence.
Is it not wonderful to be free from the complicated systems which our sectarianism has built and which have, to a large extent, contributed to our perplexity and bewilderment? When Jesus came into Jerusalem, He entered a city of complex
creeds and contradictory doctrines. Into what miserable complications He walked! And into what a hubbub of contentious voices He entered! Great, tedious ceremonials occupied the temple services. The ten commandments were buried beneath a huge pile of arbitrary laws and long lists of Pharisaical rules. There was as much caste system as we find in India. Years were spent in splitting definitions and men, who called themselves religious, did nothing but quarrel over this interpretation and that. But He swept away all of their religious “bric-a-brac”; and held out His loving arms to old and young, to rich and poor, and said, “'Come unto Me and I will give you rest.”
He knew they were not satisfied. He knew they were weary. He knew they were heavy laden. He knew also that many would find no rest in what He said or in what He did. Though He were to speak healing to a broken body it would not, of necessity, bring peace to the troubled soul. They could be recipients of deliverance through His miracles, but that did not mean, of necessity, that they would possess Him. We need not pray for Him to give us peace. He is our peace! We need not ask Him to give us rest. He is our rest. Sink deep into the Everlasting Arms!
It is when we have learned the glory of personal identification with Jesus that the barriers are broken down; the walls of Jericho fall--and we enter into a life of victory that is beyond human comprehension. Nothing else matters so long as we have Him; and we stop struggling to keep Him, when we remember that He keeps us. The storms of life may blow for us, as well as for everybody else, but He is our peace.
Circumstances may cross our path which leave in their wake an atmosphere of sorrow, but He is our joy. His life becomes our breath. “I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” Such life is never attained. It is always imparted. It is never earned. The flow of it is measured by one's spiritual ability to receive it. In some lives it might flow like a tiny rivulet or a little stream which is hardly perceptible. But in others, it becomes the flow of a mighty surging river.
“He that believeth on Me, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” It is the flow of this divine life which will mean death to self. IT IS ONLY THE SPIRIT OF GOD WHICH CAN CONQUER FLESH. It is only HIS LIFE WHICH CAN CONQUER DEATH. It is only TRUTH WHICH CAN DETHRONE ERROR. How useless it is for the man, however sincere he may be as he sheds his penitential tears, to endeavor to accomplish by his own power the experiences which will be brought into being spontaneously as we LET THE KING OF GLORY IN!
The Spirit of Revelation
It may shock you when I say that I have stopped trying to live a Christian life. I tried for so long and for so long I failed; but, Oh, what a salvation this; for Christ liveth in me! It was to the Ephesian church that Paul wrote: “that the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe.” His power! Not ours. The very power which raised up Jesus from the dead can dwell in us!
If that power then is available, why should I use my feeble powers in trying to accomplish what He can bring about in life and heart and mind. The divine power is irresistible. It is the power which raised Jesus from the dead! Nothing can withstand it! All of the combined forces of hell and earth cannot stem its onward flow; neither can they impede the dynamic of its lifting, surging wave. Gone are the days when we were poor humans struggling to get to heaven. No, we are the sons of God; rich in grace, and glorious in faith! Heaven has come to us. The reservoirs of glory are available. The flow of omnipotence comes into our weakness and drives it away. Open your life to God! Open your being to His Presence! In all your ways acknowledge Him! Make your body a castle and affirm that the King is in residence! Fly high the banner of the royal occupancy! Then your heart will rejoice in the Lord, and your spirit shall be satisfied!
Only in Him
Let us remember that Jesus anticipates nothing from the flesh. However we may dress it up, He does not want it! However good we may try to make it, it is not acceptable to Him. We can put it in priestly habiliments and clothe it with ecclesiasti-cal garments, but it is repugnant in His eyes, and foreign to His very Spirit. No matter how we cover it up, it is still only flesh. We say that Christ died for the sinner; but we fail to remember that the sinner can die only in Christ. Only in Him! It is only there that we find the death of the flesh. We do not clean out the Adamic nature and then, after the cleaning out has supposedly been done, invite the Divine nature to come in and dwell. Can the Adamic nature overthrow the Adamic nature? Can flesh conquer flesh? Perish the thought!
It is to the extent that we become partakers of the Divine nature that the Adamic nature is overthrown. I have heard people at altars crying with monotonous regularity, “Lord, let me die. Let me die;” instead of recognizing that He has died for them. How I have wished that they might see the truth. The only thing which can cause the end of self is the impartation of His LIFE! The way to get darkness out of a room is to let light in. The way to get salvation from sin is to let the Saviour enter! The only life that is eternal is the life which He brings with Him. “He that hath the Son hath life!”
When we see the truth, we shall stop “screaming out” to God as if He were so very far away. He is closer than breathing. At the door of your heart--at the threshold of your spirit! Let Him in! Let us stop trying to do in self what only He can
accomplish, and at last you will be satisfied. At last you will be a liberated soul. The bondage will be over. The shackles will have been broken. The chains will have gone. You will be free!
Whom the Son makes free is free indeed! Are these idle words? Are they not pregnant with a divine meaning? We have read His glorious promises and have looked forward with the eyes of anticipation to the years to come, as if our Heavenly Father were reserving their fulfillment all for tomorrow. They are ours! Ours in the here and now! Ours for the taking! Ours for the possessing! Ours--ours--if only we will make HIM ours! How completely and wonderfully does HE SATISFY!
Our Growth
The satisfaction of today is not the satisfaction of tomorrow and our spiritual capacity increases with His daily indwelling. It is relative satisfaction now; it will be perfect satisfaction then! Some day we shall awake with Thy likeness! “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.” Can any of us compute the riches and the wealth of the Christian experience when we enter into the life of Christ. We stand amazed in the presence of the fullness of its prerogatives, and we marvel at the riches of His redemptive grace. This was the heavenly vision which inspired Paul to declare, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” This was not the future; it was the present. This was not for tomorrow; it was for today. This was not a promise to be hoped for; it was an experience to be possessed.
When we enter into Christ and Christ enters into us, we become co-heirs to all of the fullness of God! There is your satisfaction! Not in your works. Not in your struggles. Not in your accomplishments. Not in your attainments. Not in your big meetings. Not in worldly fame. No--ten thousand times No! God forbid that we should glory save in the Cross of Christ our Lord! It is that Cross that opened the gates of Glory for our broken, weary hearts to enter. His Cross was the hinge upon which the door swung open from law to grace--from what we could not do, to what He did for us. Oh, that we could see the poverty of our own endeavors; and the barrenness of our own efforts. Let us stop trying to manufacture a twentieth century atonement out of a cross of self crucifixion and good works!
“I've found a Friend; oh, such a Friend!
He loved me, ere I knew Him;
He drew me with the cords of love,
And thus He bound me to Him.
And round my heart still closely twine
Those ties, which naught can sever;
For I am His, and He is mine,
For ever and for ever!
I've found a Friend; oh, such a Friend!
So kind, and true, and tender,
So wise a Counsellor and Guide,
So mighty a Defender!
From Him, who loves me now so well,
What power my soul can sever?
Shall life? or death? or earth? or hell?
No! I am His for ever!”
It will be all of Christ there! All of His grace--all of His love--all of His truth--all of His mercy! No wonder John could say, “And of His fullness have we all received, and grace for grace.”
Our trouble is that there is so much of the “old” left in us--so much of clinging to our worn out ritualisms; so much hanging on to the traditions of our fathers; so much of refusing to let go the old that we might appropriate the new--that we are living on starvation rations instead of feasting on the fat of the land. Like the children of Israel at the gates of the land of promise, we let a few giants drive us back into the wilderness, to wander around for forty years instead of going in to take our possession and to claim our inheritance!
So many of us are spiritually anemic when we ought to be vitalized by the throb of His divine life which would have its influence, even upon these mortal bodies of ours. Instead of running around looking for healing, we would learn the secret of imparted health. Christ would be sufficient, Jesus would be actually and literally the fulfillment of His promise in life and in heart, in body and in spirit. The flesh bows before His glance, carnality meets its master. Not in the power of human resolution, but in the power of the Living Word!
Death is vanquished when He speaks! Human tears can never open a grave; nor soulish emotions bring about a resurrection. The only thing which can conquer death is life. The saints of God can be so filled and vitalized with the power of His divine presence and the outflow of His divine life that rivers of Living Water will spring out of their innermost being and flow out to refresh a perishing world! That day is coming! It is nigh at hand!
He Abides
Satisfied! Completely satisfied! Not with self but with Him. Not in self; but in Him. Not with human works; but with a work divine. “For me to live is Christ.” And again, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Who is going to reign in our mortal bodies? To whom are we going to give the
reins of government and the power of authority?
For a long time I did not understand how it was possible for a man to crucify his Lord afresh. Yet I know now. As the life of Christ in us can crucify the Adamic nature, so we can reverse the conditions and allow the life of the flesh to crucify again the Son of God! The powers of darkness are greater than your resolutions or your will. But the powers of righteousness and life and truth in Christ Jesus are greater than all other powers combined.
When Resurrection Life walks toward the grave, death begins to tremble. When disease or sickness sees the radiance of divine health, it begins to lose its grip and let go its cruel hold. When hellish habits hear the approach of the nail-pierced feet of our Saviour, they know they have met their Master, for He comes to accomplish what will, resolution and purpose could never bring about.
So He comes! He abides! There is our satisfaction! No longer are we anxious about anything, for we know that He has taken charge. No longer need we worry. What does it matter where we are, if only He is near?
Dare we gauge our happiness by the measurements of worldly success, or weigh our joys in the scales of human possessions? No longer need we approach as beggars and mendicants, recognizing that we are SONS AND HEIRS! His resources are ours! His possessions belong to us! The riches of His grace, He freely imparts! The Father's love He bestows. Light streams upon the inexplicable and the things that once we could not understand by all the machinations of mind and intellect, now become clear and plain as the noon-day sun.
It is so wonderful to be satisfied! It is so wonderful to be filled with God! It is so wonderful to cease from our struggles and our labors! How sweet to enter into His rest! Since the satisfaction of this transient hour is as glorious as it is, what will the satisfaction of the morrow be when we shall awake in His likeness! Oh, Eternity, you will be too short for us to explore the vast reaches of your unfolding wonders! But every day we shall be satisfied! Satisfied in Heaven because we are satisfied in Him!





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