_MAY ONE LOSE THE BLESSING?_
The question trembles from many a lip--If I get the blessing, may I lose
it? Most certainly. But, glory be to God! He has made ample provision for
failure. There is no reason why we _should_ fail; God has made ample
provision _against_ failure; we must not expect to fail; _but_ in case we
do fail, provision has been made. The most prolific cause of loss is
disobedience--disobedience either to one of God's written commands, or to
the inward promptings of His Holy Spirit. "The Holy Ghost whom God hath
given to them that obey Him" (Acts v. 32). This all-glorious gift is not
only obtained but retained in connection with obedience. It is absolutely
necessary to maintain the attitude of complete self-surrender, for the
slightest act of disobedience--that is, the asserting of our own will in
opposition to His will--may cost us the loss of the blessing, such as,
neglecting to speak to a man about the great salvation, or, refusing to
give a tract to some one when we _knew_ God wanted us to do so. We must
learn to be obedient to the promptings of the Spirit. "Mine eyes are ever
toward the Lord" (Ps. xxv. 15) must be our constant attitude.
If we possess the blessing, and desire to retain it, there is another
matter of the last importance that must be attended to, viz., letting
"the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom" (Col. iii. 16).
The Spirit-filled man will be a Word-filled man. A neglected Bible is
responsible for much of the lost blessing from which many of God's
children are suffering to-day. If we would retain the blessing in its
fullness and freshness, we must feed _daily_ and feed _much_ upon Christ
as He is revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. It is the function of the
indwelling Spirit to take of the things of Christ, and to show them unto
us (John xvi. 14). He does not speak from Himself or of Himself, but of
Jesus; and so He will be continually drawing us to the Word, that He may
have the opportunity of drawing our attention to fresh beauties in
Immanuel. There is much so-called reading of the Bible that is not
"searching the Scriptures" (John v. 39), not "delighting in the law of
the Lord," not "meditating in it day and night" (Ps. i. 2), not "letting
the Word of Christ _dwell in you richly_." You cannot live a Spirit-filled
life, and be content with a shallow, meager acquaintance with the Divine
Word. The Spirit-filled man gives God's Book its own proud place, the
premier place, in all his reading. It is instructive to compare the
effects of being filled with the Spirit and of being filled with the Word.
"Be filled with the Spirit; speaking _one to another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing_ and making melody _with your heart to the
Lord_" (Eph. v. 18). "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all
wisdom; teaching and admonishing _one another with psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing_ with grace _in your hearts unto God_" (Col.
iii. 16).
Have we then, unhappily, through disobedience or neglect, lost the
blessing which once we possessed? Is there one saying, "Oh that I were
as in the months of old!"? (Job xxix. 2.) It may be "all joy" with you
again, for if you have lost the blessing, just go back and search for it,
and you will find it where you lost it! Just there and nowhere else. Have
you found the spot where your obedience failed? Yield and obey just there,
pick up your obedience where you dropped it, and there you may obtain the
blessing, again as you obtained it at the first; but _just there and
nowhere else_. An illustration of this is found in 2 Kings vi. The
Divinity Students of those days were going down to build a new Divinity
Hall on the banks of the Jordan, and they asked Elisha, the man of God,
to go with them. The story tells us that as one of the students "was
felling a beam, the axe-head fell into the water; and he cried and said,
Alas, my master! for it was borrowed. And the man of God said, Where fell
it? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in
thither; and the iron did swim. And he said, Take it up to thee. So he
put out his hand and took it," and having re-fixed the axe-head on the
handle, he went on again with his felling (verses 5-7). Where was it that
the student got his lost axe-head? Where he lost it! in the very spot
where it fell into the Jordan's waters--it was just _there_ that he found
it. So if you lose the blessing, the only spot on earth where you need
look for it, if you wish to take it up to thee again, is _the very spot
where you lost it_. Let us all learn by root of heart what the student
did _not_ do. After the axe-head flew from the handle, he did not continue
at work chopping with an axe-handle. No; but as soon as he lost his
axe-head, he _stopped till he got it on again_. Oh that many a Christian
worker would read, mark, learn; and inwardly digest! Then some Sabbaths
there might be many a pulpit without a preacher, and many a Sabbath School
class without a teacher, and many a sphere of Christian labor without its
worker. Why? where are they? Away looking for their axe-heads! Away to the
banks of that river of disobedience, in whose sluggish waters they lost
them! Alas! that there should be so many to-day with an axe-handle, trying
in this way to fell beams for the house of our God! working with the
blessing lost! Hard labor this, and very little to show for it--except
earnestness! "And isn't it a fine thing to be in earnest?" Yes, but it is
a finer to have a little of that uncommon thing--homely common sense, at
the back of the earnestness, and the man who is hewing with an axe-handle
doesn't impress one as being overburdened that way! If we have enjoyed
and have lost the Fullness of the Spirit, let us confess, betake us to
the open fountain and obey, and He will put away our sin; and then, let
us start afresh, let us come to Him again for the Fullness, as at the
first, and we will find that "He abideth faithful: for He cannot deny
Himself" (2 Tim. ii. 13). For the sake of the Sacred Heart, for His Name's
glory, for the sake of souls, and for our own sake, we must not, we will
not try to live and labor without being "FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT."
THE END.
Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected without
comment.