Full life for empty men

CHAPTER I. Cause of Emptiness

Sin — Guilt of Sin — Sins — Disharmony — Sin is Transgression — Second, Law of Love — Moralist and Humanitarian — Sin is Failure to do Good— Sin is Unbelief — Why is Unbelief Sin— What an Unbeliever Believes.

CHAPTER II. How to See Emptiness

Goodness and Method — Paul — Job — Jacob — Isaiah — Peter — Eight Reasons — The Past — The Present — The Future — Conscience — Conviction by the Spirit.

CHAPTER III. How to Get Rid of Emptiness

Repentance — Things Men Say — Things Men Do — Inventions — The Easiest Method— The Best Method— God's Way— The Source of Difficulty — Turning the Direction, Obedience, Will, Work— Paying a Debt— In Hell— God's Thought.

How to Get Fulness.

Cannot Believe our Senses — Belief Outside of Sense — Influence Without Contact — Belief is Reception — Belief is Threefold — Belief is Action.

CHAPTER VII. How to Know that You Have Full Life

Humility — Finding God's Will — How to get Eyes — How to get Health — How to get Happiness — How to keep Safe — Disobedience — The Test — Morality — Grace to Obey.

CHAPTER VIII. How to keep Full Life

Christ in You — The Bible and Christ — Elijah's Test — Christian Graces — Proof of God's Love — God's Reckoning.

CHAPTER IX. How Full Life is Developed

Full Life — Life from Death — Failure to Grow — Grace — Works — Dead Works.

CHAPTER X. How is Full Life to be Used

Doing Good — Pleasing God — Living to God's Glory — Revealing God — God Glorifies Us.

INTRODUCTION.

During several years of Christian service it has become more and more painfully evident that though nearly all persons in Christian lands were generally familiar with the Christian religion, yet there were very few Christians who could intelligently tell a fellow-being how to become a Christian. Few sinners know how to help themselves in reaching the kingdom, through ignorance of just how in particular to become a Christian. Where to begin and what to do at each succeeding point they knew not, though from infancy they were familiar, in general, with Christianity. Then, further, when the Christian life was begun, how to sustain and develop it was a continuation of the same problem. This ignorance was recognized also by a multitude of non-professors in their frequent excuse, " I cannot live it." Both in the pastoral and evangelistic work I have been forced to emphasize the particular along these lines. This is a prayerful attempt to set forth in plain form, How to become a Christian, and, How to stay a Christian ; especially for use m my own work. It is not a theological treatise in that there is an attempt made to set forth a divine order in dogmatic form, of God's supernatural grace in regeneration and sanctification. The clock can-

not tick out Christian experience for each succeeding hour, or brains understand the divine. An attempt is made to show the way to satisfaction, full life, for hungry and thirsty, — empty men. A view of the plan of saving grace with the emphasis on the human side. A word, however, concerning the source of salvation by way of introduction.

We would not lose sight of the ground of our salvation found in Jesus Christ alone. We would not needlessly trouble the mind about questions of sin and repentance, regeneration and sanctification. So now a word which must indeed be the first word, that concerning the salvation provided for us in Christ. This must be recognized by the sinner before true repentance is possible. A man must guard against making " works of righteousness which he can do " out of feelings about sin and repentance and even his professed belief, so subtle are the deceptions of Satan in regard to salvation in Christ. God saves through a look of faith at the uplifted Christ (John 3 : 14, 15). We cannot be saved by looking at our own sins, nor by looking at the Bible, nor by reasoning about the relationship between sin and God.

There is life for a look at the crucified one, There is life at this moment for thee.

A criticising skeptic came to one of God's believing saints and asked, " What is the gospel you believe, and how do you believe it? " She replied, " God is satisfied with the work of His Son — this is the gospel I believe and I am satisfied with it — this is how I believe it." Another has given this

INTRODUCTION.

explanation of it, " There is a great difference between your religion and mine ; yours consists of two letters, D-O, and mine consists of four, D-O-N-E.

Jesus said upon the cross, " It is finished." We may ask what is finished? Jesus answers in John 17: 4, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." How did He view this work? We get His answer in John 4: 34, " My meat is to do the work of Him that sent me, and to finish His work." As Jesus has finished His work and God has accepted it, we may for ourselves wisely ask the question of John 6 : 28, "What shall we do that we might work the works of God." His answer comes direct. Jesus answered and said unto them, " This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom he hath sent." Then we read the 47th verse as the result of such belief: "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast out." Our faith links us with the completed work of Jesus and His work becomes ours. Then according to Colossians 2 : 10, " Ye are complete in Him."

" You must beware of resting your peace on your feelings, convictions, tears, repentance, prayers, duties, or resolutions. You must begin with receiving Christ, and not make that the termination of a course of fancied preparation. ... . You are as welcome to Christ now as you ever will be. Wait not for deeper conviction of sin, for why should you prefer conviction to Christ? Our peace with God, our forgiveness, our reconciliation flow wholly from the sin-atoning sacrifice

I O INTR ODUC TION.

of Jesus." Here we have the ground of our salvation in Christ. The following pages mean to set forth in somewhat of order man's part in and man's recognition of the plan and purpose of salvation. Without the atoning sacrifice of Christ none of it is possible to man. He cannot see sin apart from grace, neither can he repent, believe, or obey apart from the Spirit's operation in his life. The following pages are true to man because of what Christ has done for every lost man, and because of what the Spirit is now doing in the life of every lost man.

I. The Cause Of Emptiness

Sin robs a man of life, — physical, moral, Sin. spiritual. While sin abounds there is no

complete or full living. Christ came that we might have life and that we might have it abundantly. Sin has emptied the human race of its inheritance from Eden onward. Now we have the Last Adam whose mission provides for the filling of our emptiness. Since Adam no man has fully lived or lived full as God intended except in Christ. Half or partial living is the universal experience. Half alive because of the absence of God. Dead in sins. Of the prodigal his father said, " This my son was dead."

The distinction between the number of

GUILT sins committed and the guilt of sin is im-

OF portant, but largely unrecognized. See

Sin. yonder beautiful and accomplished young

woman? With gay, light, and smiling

presence she passes her admirers. From her

nature this morning she wove into the day a

thread of meanness. A mean thought showed

itself in a mean act expressive of her character.

See yonder dusky figure, with scowling mien? He is just from the murderer's deed. He is just risen from the pit, fiendish. The one before men, is a devil, the other, a good woman. In both God sees a bad nature. A nature that is capable of a mean act is capable of sin, sin is capable of making its possessor a demon. So that he who offends in one point is guilty of all, because the nature that is capable of one white, airy, summer sin, is capable of doing way-down, deep, zero sins. The picnic sins come from the same source as the pit sins, so are alike sinful, not as to the number committed, but as to the quality. Poison is poison, even though it be in ever so small a quantity. Healthfulness does not arise from diminutive portions of disease, but from fulness of life. One little unthinking error is not any more beautiful in God's sight than a thousand heinous crimes. For God cannot look upon sin — SIN, with one degree of allowance. He asks, " Is it sin? " Not how much or how many sins.

This does # not invalidate a consideration of SlNS. particular sins, which is often necessary.

Many will admit that they are sinners but will not allow the finger placed upon any particular sins. The story is told of a man who got drunk, and sought pardon and peace, but was unsuccessful. His minister urged him to pray again and so they knelt together. The man prayed, " O God, thou knowest thy servant in a moment of unwatchfulness was overtaken by a sin."

" Nonsense ! " said the minister; " tell the Lord you got drunk."

The man could not bring himself up to that, and so began again : " O Lord, thou knowest thy servant, in his weakness and frailty, was overtaken by a besetting sin."

" Nonsense ! tell the Lord you got drunk."

At last the poor fellow said : " O God, have mercy on me ; I got drunk."

In answer to that prayer the man received forgiveness and peace. In speaking of sin as guilt before God we would not minimize the great importance of dealing with particular sins and saying, Thou art the man guilty of this particular sin. Erroneous opinions are those out DISHARMONY. of harmony with right thinking. Insanity is action out of harmony with right thinking. Drunkenness is caused by appetite out of harmony with the needs of a physical man. The shoe and the foot must fit. A hat too large covers the ears, making the man look ridiculous. Sin is that which does not correspond to the need and happiness of the physical, moral, and spiritual nature. A man out of harmony with his own nature would be out of harmony with the nature in whose likeness' he was created. Sin is lack of correspondence with God. Being what God is not. Doing what God does not do.

An ajfple tree that does not bear apples defeats the purpose of its planting and growing. So a man who does not love God. A house in which no one lives is not meeting the purpose for which it was built. So a man in whom God does not dwell. A grocery store that does not keep coffee, sugar, soap, is only half a store, for those are staple groceries. Spirituality is a staple in the man whom God made. A man who pays no regard to the keeping of his body is a suicide. One who disregards morals is a criminal. One who pays no regard to keeping spirituality is a sinner. These only half live, for man is physical, moral, spiritual. If the body lacks food, if the heart lacks morals, if the spirit lacks Christ's gospel, £he man is only half supplied, and only half lives. Food for the body, morals for the man, and Christianity for the spirit. Neglect feeding either with its suitable food and you have death. Sin is what hurts us. If a thing is harmless to all parts of our nature it is not sinful. All sin injures. God's laws are those regulations which he knows will keep us in harmony with the nature he has given us, and so with his own nature.

Being in sin is possessing a nature out of accord with God's nature. Sinning is obeying the dictates of this corrupt nature. " I am carnal sold under sin." That is, he obeys, goes according to his flesh nature. He, is living the flesh life which has the control over him. To be ruled by the flesh life is sin. An earthly man, though moral, is living in a condition of sin, because only following his feeling, impulses, and reason. His very acts of morality may be sin, for an evil tree cannot produce good fruit. He may be even priding himself that he lacks the spirituality, without which, God says, there is none good, no not one, and without which no man shall see the kingdom of heaven. A man might so live as to commit no sin against his body or his moral nature, yet be a grievous sinner, because he neglects spirituality. A perfect man is right with himself, his neighbor, his God ; bodily, morally, spiritually. Notice for illustration the young ruler and Paul before conversion.

In his first epistle, 5:19,

SlN is John says, " The whole

Transgression, world lieth in wickedness." All

will admit that the world is wicked. But the devil's delusion is couched thus: The world is bad and needs reforming, but I personally am fairly good. They regard only the first Mosaic definition of sin, law-breaking, "Sin is the transgression of the law." Civil and social crimes the law of the country deals with largely. Sheriffs, prisons, and the gallows regulate their transgression. Others of them, such as lying and various forms of dishonesty, the conscience convicts of in civilized countries. Moral men do not break these according to their interpretations of them, and therefore conclude that their lives must be acceptable in God's sight. But Jesus speaks a forgotten commandment in Matthew 22 : 34 and following. " Now the Pharisees hearing that He silenced the Sadducees, were brought together with one accord ; and one from among them proposed a question, tempting Him : Teacher, which commandment is great in the law? And He said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with the whole of thy heart, with the whole of thy soul, and with the whole of thy mind." This is the great and first commandment. Mark adds to this, with the whole of thy might. Luke adds, with the whole of thy intention. So we have as the great and first commandment the duty to love God with the whole of our heart, soul, mind, might, and intention. Love God with the total being. This is a commandment. Who is guilty of breaking it? Loving God in any less degree than this language conveys is breaking the first commandment. Men whose consciences are not quickened make the sad blunder of thinking that all that God requires is that they shall not break the ten commandments. He requires this and much more, that men shall love him with the entire being. This is not a question of choice

THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS.

but the first and greatest commandment. Failure to so love God is the first and greatest sin. Surely all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Failure to love God leaves us open to the charge of breaking all the commandments. In Malachi's day this failure was considered robbery. "Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me." The people ask as in surprise, "Wherein have we robbed thee?" They are thinking of the external evidences of love to God, but God's burden about them is seen in the words, " I have loved you saith the Lord." Their chief robbery was in not returning God's love to him. Failure to love God all through the prophets, is recognized as spiritual adultery. Jesus indicates that failure on the part of the Pharisees to love him breaks their relationship to God, and makes liars and children of the devil. " If I should say I know him not I would be a liar like unto you." "Ye are of your father, the devil." How astounding this language concerning a people whose lives were spent in professed law-keeping. Surely an impressive lesson for every moralist. These men were murderers^ " Which of the prophets have your fathers not killed ? " Saul was a murderer of Christians, and was authorized by these men to do his deeds of slaughter ; yet he thought he was doing the will of God, and keeping strictly, better than others, the commandments of God. Failure to love God crucified Christ. Of those who knew most about the law Jesus says, " Ye cannot hear my word." The whole decalogue is broken when the first and greatest commandment is broken, love to God, as when the keystone falls from the arch.

Following the first great law is

Second, Law the second, namely, " Thou shalt

OF Love. love thy neighbor as thyself."

Love to God is first, and love to humanity is second. They that love God keep his commandments. His first commandment is love to himself. When a man is seen showing love to humanity before love to God, we know he is in error. His benevolence is sin. A religion of " love to my neighbor" is no better than any other natural religion. Though the Bible is claimed as its source does not alter its real merit. This is an angel of light which deceives many. Satan, in quoting scripture to these people, is more successful than he was with Christ. To love your neighbor before you love your God is sin. Moreover, your professed love to your neighbor is spurious if you do not love God first. There is no true passion of love but from God, and if you have it you will first keep his commandments.

A moralist and humanitarian may as such receive their reward for the lives they live and the love they show to their fellow creatures, but as such only they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. But a man who truly loves God cannot help but be moral and show practical love to. his

neighbor. Education and cir-

MORALIST AND cumstances make men moral and

Humanitarian, brotherly, but those forces will

not regenerate the soul. There is much confounding of morality and Christianity, and so thinking the two are one. They are as different as any separate conditions can well be. The one person is a decent member of society ; the other a spiritually regenerated person, a member of the invisible kingdom of God. The one keeps men out of an earthly jail, the other out of a spiritual hell, and more, admits him into the everlasting home and presence of God.

In James 4 : 17 we read, " There-

SlN IS FAILURE fore to him that knoweth to

TO DO GOOD. do good and doeth it not, to

him it is sin." Another translation is: " To one therefore who knows how to be doing a noble thing and is not doing it, a sin to him it is." The unthinking say that they are not sinners when they find themselves free from committing crimes ; but failure to do good is sin. A question of what good was there which I could have done and which I failed to do ; or what noble thing. It goes beyond the merely good doing and reaches into the realm of the heroic. Failure to act noble is sin. Failure to do our best and act the true hero is sin. To do anything less than we might is sin. Good omitted is sin committed. The five foolish virgins were shut out for what they failed to do, and especially for what they failed to do on time. They did the right thing, but they did it too late. The man with the one talent was dealt with for not using that one talent. He let it lie hidden, and so unimproved. The wedding guest came, but he was cast out for failure to have put on the provided garment. The law of the judgment of nations is, " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these." In making superficial definitions, men say sin is only the absence of holiness, just as cold is the absence of heat, and darkness the absence of light; but when that absence is God's absence, and so of holiness, it becomes the depth of human misery on earth, and hell in the coming dispensation. Even such negative definition is appalling.

Our age prides itself upon its knowledge and enlightenment, and pleads its advancement as commendatory in God' s sight. This, however, is a cause for condemnation. Knowledge and ability only add cursing to the disobedient, ''And that servant who got to know the will of his lord, and neither prepared nor wrought with regard to his will shall be beaten much ; but he who did not get to know, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten little." So the greater condemnation of the gospel enlightened. " Had I not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin ; but now they have no excuse for their sin." Their knowledge leaves them "without excuse." Jesus said unto them, " If blind ye had been ye had not, in that case, had sin ; but now ye say, We see ; — your sin remains." Because they are not heathen they shall receive the greater condemnation ; their enlightened condition adding to their condemnation. They knew how to act nobly, but would not.

In Romans 14:23 we see that "What-

SlN IS soever is not of faith is sin." In

UNBELIEF. Eden man cut himself off from

God and started an independent life, according to the flesh and the world. Humanity has been living that life ever since. The plan of the gospel in Christ is to bring men into a life of union again with God. Living the self-life, whic*h is a walk by sight, in contrast to a walk by faith, is sin. It is independence of God, self-sufficiency, doing one's own will, following human opinion and reason, following a self-made plan of life, living a self-made character. It is a life apart from faith. " Now everything that is not of faith is sin."

Jesus says concerning the mission of the Holy Spirit after his own departure, " And coming he will convict the world of sin, — of sin indeed, because they are not putting faith in me." So we have it very clearly set forth that unbelief is sin. We can readily see the superficial thinking of our age when they see sin to be only the actual breaking of one of the civil laws of the land, such as stealing, murder, and the like. In John 3:18, we have the translation, " He who puts faith in him is not to be judged, but he who puts not faith, already has been judged, because he has not put faith in the name of the only begotten Son of God." The man of unbelief has passed before the Judge and been charged with and condemned for the crime of Calvary. Unbelief crucified Jesus. Each unbeliever is guilty of the shed blood of Christ. The righteousness of Christ is given to each believer.

In 1 John 5 : 10, we read, " He that believeth not God hath made him a liar," " because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son." Unbelief is no slight matter, as it determines God to be false. " He that has not faith in God, false has made him." If unbelief concerning the love of God in Christ to them, makes them proclaim God false, and gives him the lie, what will they not do concerning lesser relationships to the Deity? So unbelievers are placed in the frightful category, " but as for the timid and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and forninicators and sorcerers and idolaters, and all the false, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; which is the second death." If in human experience birds of a feather flock together, and if God who knows the hearts of all men places unbelievers in the same list as to quality with murder and idolatry, then surely it is a heinous sin. Says Luther, "This white devil which urges man to commit spiritual sins is far more dangerous than the black devil, which only tempts them to commit fleshly sins, which the world acknowledges to be sins."

But why is unbelief a sin of such

Why IS deep dye ? We have seen from Scrip-

UNBELIEF ture that it sets God down as false.

SlN? It is wilfully blind to the teachings of

history, to these nineteen hundred years of historical evidences showing the truthfulness of the gospel. Blind in personal experience and observation, failing to recognize that the present day civilization comes from Christianity* It fails to see God's purpose as revealed in the Old and New Testaments, which is to bring the unbeliever to faith. It takes upon itself to do in a few years by works of self-righteousness what God has taken centuries to do. To make eternal reconciliation to God by prayers and resolutions and gifts. Counting their own deeds of equal value with the atonement of Christ, they set themselves up as being equal to Christ in good works. It is practically claiming sinlessness of life. Unbelief charges God with murdering Christ unnecessarily. They can be saved by their own works, and so of what value and to what purpose was it for God to sacrifice his Son? They say to God, You need not have gone to the trouble from Abel onward to shed blood, we can be saved by our own devices without shedding of blood. You are a bloody, murderous God. God's greatest work is the redemption of man, and they claim that they can do it in shorter time and with much less effort and cost than God can. They set themselves up above all that is called God, or that is worshiped as God. . The utter blindness of unbelief ! The tremendous deceptions that men will allow Satan to play upon them ! Satan originally thought to ascend above God and rebelled.; now he deceives men into unbelief, and brings them into the same state of rebellion with himself. Unbelief put Christ upon the cross and it would take God from his throne.

What does an unbeliever believe?

What an It cannot be Christ or he would UNBELIEVER believe Christ wrio is the truth. Of

BELIEVES. him it is said, " His word ye have

within you abiding, because whom

he sent, in him- ye are not believing." It must be

the opposite from the truth they are believing.

If they are not believing Christ, they must be believing some other power. Jesus says to unbelievers, " Ye are of your father, the adversary; and the covetings of your father ye wish to be doing. He was a man-killer from the beginning ; and in the truth does not stand, because there is no truth in him. Whensoever he may be speaking falsehood, of his own he is speaking, because false he is, and the father of it." God and truth go together, and if a man does not believe them, whom does he believe? He must believe some one and some thing. There is no other beside God but Satan with his lie. An unbeliever must surely believe the devil and his lie. This was Adam's choice in the garden. There is nothing else that he can accept if he denies God and the truth. *

II. How To See Emptiness

Men see the lowest when their gaze

GOODNESS is upon the highest object. Nothing

AND so effectively reveals the depth of

METHOD. human depravity as a view of God.

The desire is commendable to appear, and to be, good. The end in view is noble. God sanctions it. Man aspires to it. But why should there be a difference in the method 4 of attainment, as set forth by God in contrast to that mostly practised by humanity? Herein the perversity of human nature. Herein the vantage ground of devil deception. Suppose a man, as he expresses it, " feels all right." He does not recognize or aspire to anything better than he has. Then we repeat to him the language of Christ in similar conditions: " I am come to seek and to save that which was lost. They that are whole have no. need of a physician." Many make a desperate attempt to believe that they have no conviction, so intent is sinful nature upon its own destruction. Sin is a shorter term for suicide or self-destruction. Until a man is brought to the conviction that he is sick, you cannot administer medicine. Man's spiritual sickness was set forth in a former section. Here we endeavor to SEE the difficulty. Man naturally, or rather unnaturally, avoids thinking of, and dealing with, his sin. He views his goodness, and contemplates that, with his chances of its being received by God, as true spiritual worth. God intends that all his people shall be as good as his Son, Jesus. In Christ he has set forth the single and simple method of obtaining goodness. God in the gospel would have men contemplate their sin, and then the righteousness of his Son, Jesus. Not to look within, but unto Christ for spiritual worth. To lay no claim to goodness, except that received from Christ.