Street Meeting Thirty Eighth

When we arrived at the park, our dear brother had already preached the Word. This pleased me greatly. The work had not waited for my coming; Christ was already being proclaimed. He afterward told me of a little encounter which had taken place whilst he was distributing materials amongst the people. Several Christians belonging to a particular church gathered around him and began asking what it was that he was giving away. Upon learning that he professed himself a believer, they did not immediately receive him as such, but began quietly examining him.

Who is Christ? How is man saved? And so the questions continued. I confess, the account brought me much pleasure. These brethren were not satisfied merely because a stranger called himself a Christian and carried religious materials in his hands. They desired first to know what Christ he confessed and what Gospel he proclaimed. What Bereans! Our brother answered them; and only after hearing his answers did their countenances change. Then came the warm smiles, and together they praised God. 

I would gladly have more such encounters amongst the saints. For there is something beautiful in Christian love which does not require us to abandon discernment. They examined the confession first; and finding a brother standing upon the same Christ and the same Gospel, they received him warmly. And I was thankful also for our dear brother. I had arrived after the preaching was already done, only to find that the Lord had given him opportunity not merely to proclaim his faith before unbelievers, but to give an account of it before the saints.

This dear couple, who came all the way from Mindanao, had only passed by the park and sat down for a little air. But whilst resting there, they heard a voice in the midst of the park preaching Christ. They immediately drew near and sat before our brother. There they remained until the preaching was finished, after which they spoke with him concerning their own background and expressed how pleasantly surprised they were to hear the Gospel being proclaimed openly in such a place.

The husband, Simeon, told us that he came from a family of pastors and pastoras, or female pastors; and from this I readily understood that their background was Evangelical/Pentecostal. His wife had afterward been converted under his guidance. There are certainly doctrines upon which we would differ, and perhaps, should the Lord give us opportunity and fellowship together, there shall be a proper time to open the Scriptures and speak concerning them. But this was not that time. There is a time to examine differences, and there is a time simply to rejoice when, upon a road where one expected only strangers, he suddenly meets others who profess the same Christ and are walking toward the same country. And so we rejoiced in meeting them.

They were newly come unto Bulacan and had as yet found no church wherein they might gather. We therefore invited them to return every Lord's Day and fellowship with us there in the park. They received the invitation gladly and said that they would come. I know not whether we shall indeed see them again. Many meetings in this life are brief, and Providence sometimes causes paths to cross only once. Yet I find something sweet in the manner of this one. They had not gone into the park seeking us. They had merely sat down to rest. Then they heard Christ being preached. They followed the voice, sat beneath the Word, and before the evening was over we were speaking together as brethren.

May the LORD, who ordered our paths to meet that afternoon, be pleased to bring us together again. And if He does, may it be that together we might know Christ more, follow Him more faithfully, and strengthen one another upon the road unto glory.

I praised God for giving our dear brother something tangible by way of encouragement. Those who walk in the path of obedience have much need of such mercies, for this road is not attractive to the flesh, neither does it promise the laboring man much recompense for his toil here. The rest comes afterward.

And therefore the Lord sometimes places a flower along the narrow path. It may be but a small thing—a word of encouragement, the warm reception of brethren, some little evidence that our labor has not been altogether in vain—yet how greatly it can strengthen the weary soul! We stoop to gather it, as it were, and are reminded that this is not a dead road after all.

Another has walked here before us. The marks of His feet are upon the way. It is that same path which Christ first trod: the path of lowering oneself, of spending and being spent, of serving where there may be neither recognition nor earthly recompense. And if now and again He is pleased to leave some little flower upon the road for the encouragement of His servants, we receive it thankfully and continue on. For the flowers are not our destination. Christ is. And this is the path of servanthood by which He went before us. He is at its end, our promised rest. Let us go to him.

My lingering ailment, whose pain increased greatly this past Saturday, threatened for a while to put an end to the affairs of the weekend. I had therefore sent a message unto a dear brother, asking whether he might cover for me. But Providence ordered otherwise. The message went unseen; and by afternoon, when the pain had subsided enough to become manageable, I deleted it and resolved to follow through with our worship.

It was not an easy evening. Much of the spiritual resistance comes upon me during these hours of preparation. My thoughts are sometimes flooded with wickedness, my mind wearied with things I neither desire nor willingly entertain, and precious time is consumed fighting that which purposes to turn me aside from the work before me. Yet God never fails to come unto my aid. The peace which I cannot command, and which at such times I so desperately need, comes. I am quieted again before Him and enabled to proceed.

Even then I sometimes look upon my notes and find them exceedingly poor—bland, lifeless things, scarcely worth carrying with me and sometimes, in mine own judgment, worth discarding altogether. I wonder what good can possibly come from such dry bones. But then I remember Adam. There lay the form which God had fashioned from the dust, complete in all its parts, yet without life until God breathed into it. And so it often appears with these poor words of mine. I may labor over them, arrange them, study the passage, and carry the notes with me; but I cannot breathe life into them. I may build the altar; but unless God sends the fire, all of it remains lifeless and useless. So it is, that I may prepare the words and speak them faithfully, but the Spirit alone can breathe life into mere speech. Preparation matters, but preparation is not power. The altar may be mine to prepare, but the fire must come from God Himself.

And again and again, when the hour comes and I must actually stand and speak, the Holy Spirit is pleased to breathe fire into those words. What seemed dead upon the page begins to live. Thoughts which would not come in preparation are suddenly given; truths which appeared cold become warm within my own heart; and I find myself receiving help whilst I am already spending it. This hath been one of the repeated lessons of the work: the help often comes at the moment of action, and not in the process of preparation. Perhaps the Lord permits it so that I might never mistake the notes for the breath, nor preparation for power. God alone can breathe life into it.

I know well enough not only the devices of Satan, but the excuses of mine own body. I could scarcely walk this day. My right knee refused to bend, my ankle gave pain with every step, and whenever I bent the left knee there came a sharp, stabbing pain. Even the effort of walking a little distance left me short of breath. Yet the fact remained: I could walk. Not normally, certainly, and not without pain. But I could walk. And this was better than crawling.

I have learned something of my body through these afflictions. When the hour of duty comes and the body begins pleading that it does not feel like moving, that is often the very hour when I must cease consulting it and go about obeying. If I wait until obedience becomes agreeable to the flesh, I fear I shall accomplish very little for God. My body is not my master. I am its steward before God; and when duty is plain, I must tell it plainly: either come and serve, or be carried along whilst I do. This is not because I despise the body, nor because pain is imaginary. I feel every step of it. But pain may tell me that the road is difficult; but I no longer permit it to decide the matter of obedience.

I know myself well enough to know which regret will be heavier when the day is ended. I shall never regret having obeyed God at some inconvenience to myself. But I know how bitterly I should afterward mourn if, having been able to go, I remained behind merely because the flesh had persuaded me that obedience cost too much. And therefore, when the body says, "Stay", I would ask another question: "What doth my Lord require of me?" If duty says, "Go", then by the grace of God, though slowly and painfully, I would rather go and afterward thank Him for carrying me through, than remain at ease and discover that I had mistaken the complaints of my flesh for sufficient reason to disobey.

The text given unto me was 2 Corinthians 5:17—that glorious declaration concerning the new creature, so often reduced, I fear, unto little more than the humanistic notion of turning over a new leaf and becoming a better man. But the text speaks of something infinitely greater.

"If any man be in Christ."

Here is the wonder. If any man, anywhere, at any time, is brought into Christ, he has ceased to be what he was. The change is not merely that he behaves differently, thinks more religiously, or has undertaken the improvement of his former life. He stands in a union which did not exist before. And methinks the language carries something of the mystery of marriage within it.

"Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

The sinner once stood apart. He belonged unto this present world, gave his affections unto it, sought his satisfaction within it, and lived separated from God. But now he is brought into union with Christ. That former solitary life is ended. He belongs unto Another. What therefore must follow? He who was afar off is brought near unto God through Christ. He who walked in darkness is brought into the light. He who was dead is made alive. The old creature does not merely receive better manners; there stands a new creature, inhabited by the Spirit of the living God.

As in human marriage two who formerly possessed separate lives are joined together, and there begins a new life in which the two are no longer to live merely unto themselves, so there is something infinitely higher in the soul's union with Christ. The redeemed soul is brought into a new relation, under a new Head, with new affections and a new belonging. His heart has been taken captive. But not by violence, but by an affection far superior—by love.

Christ does not drag an unwilling bride unto Himself. According to the gracious will of the Father, He conquers the rebel heart by revealing Himself as altogether lovely. The affections which once ran eagerly after the world begin now to find their rest in Him. What once appeared precious loses something of its brightness because another Treasure has appeared, and He is incomparably greater.

This, then, is no turning over of a new leaf, but the receiving of a new life. The man has not merely exchanged one manner of living for another. He has been joined unto Christ. And where Christ joins a sinner unto Himself, He does not leave that sinner to continue as though the union meant nothing. His Spirit now dwells within him; His life begins to show itself through him; and something of Christ Himself is made visible again upon the earth in the life of one who formerly lived only unto himself.

The new creature is therefore not chiefly a better version of the old man. He is a man who now made alive in belonging unto Christ who is life. And herein lies the glory of the whole passage: not merely that the sinner has changed, but that the life of Christ now is in him (Colossians 1:27).

Souls heard that there is a King upon the throne, and that salvation is found in His name alone. Nay, more than salvation: life itself is found in Christ. We are saved by His life (Romans 5:10). His death not only justified those who will believe, but His life sustains those who are made alive. This is the glory of preaching Christ openly—that dying men might hear where Life is found.