I wish to speak to you about Jesus, and Jesus only. I often hear people
say, "I wish I could get hold of Divine Healing, but I cannot."
Sometimes they say, "I have got it." If I ask them, "What have
you got?" the answer is sometimes, "I have got the blessing",
sometimes it is, "I have got the theory"; sometimes it is, "I
have got the healing"; sometimes, "I have got the
sanctification." But I thank God we have been taught that it is not the
blessing, it is not the healing, it is not the sanctification, it is not the
thing, it is not the it that you want, but it is something better. It is
"the Christ"; it is Himself. How often that comes out in His Word -
"Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses", Himself
"bare our sins in his own body on the tree"! It is the person of
Jesus Christ we want. Plenty of people get the idea and do not get anything out
of it. They get it into their head, and it into their conscience, and it into
their will; but somehow they do not get Him into their life and spirit, because
they have only that which is the outward expression and symbol of the spiritual
reality. I once saw a picture of the Constitution of the United States, very
skillfully engraved in copper plate, so that when you looked at it closely it
was nothing more than a piece of writing, but when you looked at it at a
distance, it was the face of George Washington. The face shone out in the
shading of the letters at a little distance, and I saw the person, not the
words, nor the ideas; and I thought, "'That is the way to look at the
Scriptures and understand the thoughts of God, to see in them the face of love,
shining through and through; not ideas, nor doctrines, but Jesus Himself as the
Life and Source and sustaining Presence of all our life."
I prayed a long time to get sanctified, and sometimes I thought I had
it. On one occasion I felt something, and I held on with a desperate grip for
fear I should lose it, and kept awake the whole night fearing it would go, and,
of course, it went with the next sensation and the next mood. Of course, I lost
it because I did not hold on to Him. I had been taking a little water from the
reservoir, when I might have all the time received from Him fullness through
the open channels. I went to meetings and heard people speak of joy. I even
thought I had the joy, but I did not keep it because I had not Himself as my
joy. At last He said to me - Oh so tenderly - "My child, just take Me, and
let Me be in you the constant supply of all this, Myself." And when at
last I got my eyes off my sanctification, and my experience of it, and just
placed them on the Christ in me, I found, instead of an experience, the Christ
larger than the moment's need, the Christ that had all that I should ever need
who was given to me at once, and for ever! And when I thus saw Him, it was such
rest; it was all right, and right for ever. For I had not only what I could hold
that little hour, but also in Him, all that I should need the next and the next
and so on, until sometimes I get a glimpse of what it will be a million years
afterwards, when we shall "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our
Father" (Matt. 13: 43), and have "all the fullness of God."
And so I thought the healing would be an it too, that the Lord would
take me like the old run-down clock, wind me up, and set me going like a
machine. It is not thus at all. I found it was Himself coming in instead and
giving me what I needed at the moment. I wanted to have a great stock, so that
I could feel rich; a great store laid up for many years, so that I would not be
dependent upon Him the next day; but He never gave me such a store. I never had
more holiness or healing at one time than I needed for that hour. He said:
"My child, you must come to Me for the next breath because I love you so
dearly I want you to come all the time. If I gave you a great supply, you would
do without Me and would not come to Me so often; now you have to come to Me
every second, and lie on My breast every moment." He gave me a great
fortune, placed thousands and millions at credit, but He gave a cheque-book
with this one condition, "You never can draw more than you need at the
time." Every time a cheque was wanted, however, there was the name of
Jesus upon it, and so it brought more glory to Him, kept His name before the
heavenly world and God was glorified in His Son.
I had to learn to take from Him my spiritual life every second, to breathe
Himself in as I breathed, and breathe myself out. So, moment by moment for the
spirit, and moment by moment for the body, we must receive. You say, "Is
not that a terrible bondage, to be always on the strain ?" What, on the
strain with one you love, your dearest Friend ? Oh, no! It comes so naturally,
so spontaneously, so like a fountain, without consciousness, without effort,
for true life is always easy, and overflowing.
And now, thank God, I have Him, not only what I have room for, but that
which I have not room for, but for which I shall have room, moment by moment,
as I go on into the eternity before me. I am like the little bottle in the sea,
as full as it will hold. The bottle is in the sea, and the sea is in the
bottle; so I am in Christ, and Christ is in me. But, besides that bottleful in
the sea, there is a whole ocean beyond; the difference is, that the bottle has
to be filled over again, every day, evermore.
Now the question for each of us is not "What think you of Bethshan,
and what think you of divine healing?" but "What think you of
Christ?" There came a time when there was a little thing between me and
Christ. I express it by a little conversation with a friend who said, "You
were healed by faith." "Oh, no," I said, "I was healed by
Christ." What is the difference? There is a great difference. There came a
time when even faith seemed to come between me and Jesus. I thought I should
have to work up the faith, so I labored to get the faith. At last I thought I
had it; that if I put my whole weight upon it, it would hold. I said, when I
thought I had got the faith, "Heal me." I was trusting in myself, in
my own heart, in my own faith. I was asking the Lord to do something for me
because of something in me, not because of something in Him. So the Lord
allowed the devil to try my faith, and the devil devoured it like a roaring
lion, and I found myself so broken down that I did not think I had any faith.
God allowed it to be taken away until I felt I had none. And then God seemed to
speak to me so sweetly, saying, "Never mind, my child, you have nothing.
But I am perfect Power, I am perfect Love, I am Faith, I am your Life, I am the
preparation for the blessing, and then I am the Blessing, too. I am all within
and all without, and all for ever." It is just having "Faith in
God" (Mark 11: 22). "And the life I now live in the flesh, I
live," not by faith on the Son of God, but "by the faith of the Son
of God" (Gal. 2 20). That is it. It is not your faith. You have no faith
in you, any more than you have life or anything else in you. You have nothing
but emptiness and vacuity, and you must be just openness and readiness to take
Him to do all. You have to take His faith as well as His life and healing, and
have simply to say, "I live by the faith of the Son of God." My faith
is not worth anything. If I had to pray for anyone, I would not depend upon my
faith at all. I would say, "Here, Lord, am I. If you want me to be the
channel of blessing to this one just breathe into me all that I need." It
is simply Christ, Christ alone.
Now, is your body yielded to Christ for Him thus to dwell and work in
you? The Lord Jesus Christ has a body as well as you only it is perfect; it is
the body, not of a man, but of the Son of man. Have you considered why He is
called the Son of man? The Son of man means that Jesus Christ is the one
typical, comprehensive, universal, all-inclusive Man. Jesus is the one man that
contains in Himself all that man ought to be all that man needs to have. It is
all in Christ. All the fullness of the Godhead and the fullness of a perfect
manhood has been embodied in Christ, and He stands now as the summing-up of all
that man needs. His spirit is all that your spirit needs, and He just gives us
Himself. His body possesses all that your body needs. He has a heart beating
with the strength that your heart needs. He has organs and functions redundant
with life, not for Himself, but for humanity. He does not need strength for
Himself. The energy which enabled Him to rise and ascend from the tomb, above
all the forces of nature, was not for Himself. That marvellous body belongs to
your body. You are a member of His body. Your heart has a right to draw from
His heart all that it needs. Your physical life has a right to draw from His
physical life its support and strength, and so it is not you, but it is just
the precious life of the Son of God. Will you take Him thus today, and then you
will not be merely healed, but you will have a new life for all you need, a
flood of life that will sweep disease away, and then remain a fountain of life
for all your future need. Oh, take Him in His fullness.
It seems to me as if I might just bring you a little talisman today, as
if God had given me a little secret for every one here and said to me, "Go
and tell them, if they will take it, it will be a talisman of power wherever
they go, and it will carry them through difficulty, danger, fear, life, death,
eternity." If I could stand on this platform and say, "I have
received from heaven a secret of wealth and success which God will give freely,
through my hand, to everybody who will take it," I am sure you would need
a larger hall for the people who would come. But, dear friends, I show you in
His Word a truth which is more precious. The Apostle Paul tells us that there is
a secret, a great secret which was hidden from ages and from generations (Col.
1: 26), which the world was seeking after in vain, which wise men from the East
hoped they might find, and God says it "is now made manifest to his
saints"; and Paul went through the world just to tell it to those that
were able to receive it; and that simple secret is just this "Christ in
you the hope of glory."
The word "mystery" means secret; this is the great secret. And
I tell you today, nay, I can give you, if you will take it from Him, not from
me-I can give you a secret which has been to me, oh, so wonderful! Years ago I
came to Him burdened with guilt and fear; I tried that simple secret, and it
took away all my fear and sin. Years passed on, and I found sin overcoming me
and my temptations too strong for me. I came to Him a second time, and He
whispered to me, "Christ in you," and I had victory, rest and blessing.
Then the body broke away in every sort of way. I had always worked hard,
and from the age of fourteen I studied and labored and spared no strength. I
took charge of a large congregation at the age of twenty-one; I broke down
utterly half a dozen times and at my last constitution was worn out. Many times
I feared I should drop dead in my pulpit. I could not ascend any height without
a sense of suffocation, because of a broken-down heart and exhausted nervous
system. I heard of the Lord's healing, but I struggled against it. I was afraid
of it. I had been taught in theological seminaries that the age of the
supernatural was past, and I could not go back from my early training. My head
was in my way, but at last when I was brought to attend "the funeral of my
dogmatics," as Mr. Schrenck says, "the Lord whispered to me the
little secret, 'Christ in you'; and from that hour I received Him for my body
as I had done for my soul. I was made so strong and well that work has been a
perfect delight. For years I have spent my summer holiday in the hot city of
New York, preaching and working amongst the masses, as I never did before;
besides the work of our Home and College and an immense mass of library work
and much besides. But the Lord did not merely remove my sufferings. It was more
than simple healing. He so gave me Himself that I lost the painful
consciousness of physical organs. That is the best of the health He gives. I
thank the Lord that He keeps me from all morbid, physical consciousness and a
body that is the object of anxious care, and gives a simple life that is a
delight and a service for the Master, that is a rest and joy.
Then, again, I had a poor sort of a mind, heavy and cumbrous, that did
not think or work quickly. I wanted to write and speak for Christ and to have a
ready memory, so as to have the little knowledge I had gained always under
command. I went to Christ about it, and asked if He had anything for me in this
way. He replied, "Yes, my child, I am made unto you Wisdom." I was
always making mistakes, which I regretted, and then thinking I would not make
them again; but when He said that He would be my wisdom, that we may have the
mind of Christ, that He could cast down imaginations and bring into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ, that He could make the brain and head
right, then I took Him for all that. And since then I have been kept free from
this mental disability, and work has been rest. I used to write two sermons a
week, and it took me three days to complete one. But now, in connection with my
literary work, I have numberless pages of matter to write constantly besides
the conduct of very many meetings a week, and all is delightfully easy to me.
The Lord has helped me mentally, and I know He is the Saviour of our mind as
well as our spirit.
Well, then, I had an irresolute will. I asked, ' Cannot you be a will to
me?" He said, "Yes, my child, it is God who worketh in you to will
and to do." Then He made me to learn how and when to be firm, and how and
when to yield. Many people have a decided will, but they do not know how to
hold on just at the proper moment. So, too, I came to Him for power for His
work and all the resources for His service, and He has not failed me.
And so I would say, if this precious little secret of "Christ in
you," will help you, you may have it. May you make better use of it than
I! I feel I have only begun to learn how well it works. Take it and go on
working it out, through time and eternity-Christ for all, grace for grace, from
strength to strength, from glory to glory, from this time forth and even for
evermore.
HIMSELF
by A. B. Simpson
Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;
Once it was
the feeling, Now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own;
Once
I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.
Once 'twas painful trying,
Now 'tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation, Now the uttermost.
Once 'twas
ceaseless holding, Now He holds me fast;
Once 'twas constant drifting, Now my
anchor's cast.
Once 'twas busy planning, Now
'tis trustful prayer;
Once 'twas anxious caring, Now He has the care.
Once
'twas what I wanted, Now what Jesus says;
Once 'twas constant asking, Now 'tis
ceaseless praise.
Once it was my working, His
it hence shall be;
Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me.
Once the power I
wanted, Now the Mighty One;
Once for self I labored, Now for Him alone.
Once
I hoped in Jesus, Now I know He's mine;
Once my lamps were dying, Now they
brightly shine.
Once for death I waited, Now His coming hail;
And my hopes are
anchored, Safe within the veil.
Albert
Benjamin Simpson (1843-1919) was one of the most important Christian workers of his day.
He was an ardent soul-winner and was active in raising up new believers and in
training Christian workers. He began his service as a Presbyterian minister,
but later resigned after realizing the inherent frustrations in trying to serve
the Lord within the denominational framework. He wrote over 70 books on the
Bible and the Christian life. His many hymns and poems are full of inspiration
and truth. He was the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
