Godliness : being reports of a series of addresses delivered at James's Hall, London, W. during 1881Booth, Catherine Mumford
Religion
Godliness : being reports of a series of addresses delivered at James's Hall, London, W. during 1881
Booth, Catherine Mumford
Salvation Army -- Sermons; Sermons, English
2. Perfect in its _obedience_. That man or woman who has this
kind of a heart, ceases to pick and choose amongst the commandments
of God, which he shall obey, and which he shall not--he ceases to
have his own will, though sometimes he may have a struggle with his
own will, and the way that God may call him to take may look to him
as if it were a dangerous or risky way, and he may wait a little bit,
to be thoroughly satisfied; but when once satisfied that it is God's
way, the true child will not hesitate. He confers not with flesh and
blood, but on he goes, irrespective of consequences. This was Paul's
kind of obedience. He conferred not with flesh and blood; he counted
all things dung and dross, and he went on doing so to the end--thorough
in his obedience.
People come to us and want to know what they are to do; they feel
that they are only half-hearted in God's service; they have neither
joy nor power, and say, "What must I do?" and we take, as God helps
us, the dissecting knife, and try to find out the difficulty. We get
them down under the blaze of the Holy Spirit's light, and try to
probe them and find where they are wrong. Perhaps the Lord leads us
to the sore spot, and we point out the difficulty, but, instead of
obeying, they shrink away. They look ahead, and they see that to obey
the light will involve loss of some kind--perhaps reputation, wealth,
family associations, ease, or loss of friends, loss of temporal
comforts, loss of good business. Loss is in the background, and they
see it. They know where we are leading them to, and they slip back;
they do not want to see, and yet they do not want to consider
themselves dishonest, so they turn their heads away, and will not
look in the direction of the light, smoothing it all over and
singing--
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an off'ring far too small," &c.
That is not a perfect heart, but a partial heart towards the Lord God.
The partial heart, so common, alas, now-a-days, wants to serve God a
little. It is willing to go a little way with God, but not all the
way; so that, taking the lowest interpretation, that is not a perfect
heart towards the Lord. Can it be expected that the Lord should shew
Himself strong in behalf of such people? Do you think you would if
you were God?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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