Where is the victorious life, when life is spent simply in the humdrum
of daily routine of selfish interests? No wonder people have an
up-and-down experience. No wonder they never get anywhere outside of the
treadmill of life. God wants us to branch out and bless the world and be
conquerors. In the Garden of Eden we read about the wonderful river that
flowed through it and watered it; but it was not self-centered nor
self-contained; it branched out. So it is in sanctified human experience
today; the Edenic stream of full salvation flows through the soul, but
it does not stop there and center itself in the individual. The stream
waters one's life and experience, but it flows out and on to bless
others also. The Edenic stream started out as one stream, but the
account tells us that it branched out into four streams and watered the
world around. So it is with that soul who will let the Holy Ghost have
His way with him. Out of his inmost being will flow rivers of living
water. This fourfold Edenic stream went out in four directions, to the
four quarters of the earth, so to speak. Four is the human number of the
Bible, and when one gets the Holy Ghost, he is expected to branch out to
the people everywhere and water the world with the precious water of
life. Holiness is not self-centered. It consists of two elements--purity
and power. If one has the thought of purity alone when he seeks the
blessing, he has a one-sided idea of it. There is a power side which
enables the possessor to conquer. Purity for the individual, and power
for the world; or in other words, power for aggressive warfare.
Whoever became a conqueror that stayed always in one little, beaten
path? The world is so big, the possibilities are so great, and the grace
of God so boundless, that it looks as if we all ought to set our stakes
for bigger results in the Christian life. One day we were passing along
a street in a certain city and observed a gentleman constructing a very
peculiar piece of frame work, and our curiosity was so aroused that we
went over and asked him what he was building. He answered, "I am
building a razzle-dazzle." He then explained what that was. He said that
a razzle-dazzle was something like a merry-go-round, except that as it
went round and round it also went up and down. We thought how many
people in their so-called Christian life are riding the razzle-dazzle.
They want to be going and moving, but they are going round and round,
and not only that, they are going up and down, up and down, and never
getting anywhere in their experience. Now, we never were much in favor
of running off on tangents, but in this case we think it would be very
advantageous to strike a tangent and take a bee-line for Canaan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account