Chapters: 1. Why Don't Men Obey God?
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26 THE BEGINNING
"Then Jesus said to His disciples, if any one desires to be My disciple, let him deny himself--that is, disregard, lose sight of and forget himself and his own interests--and take up his cross and follow Me (cleave steadily to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and if need be in dying, also.) --Matthew 16:24 (Amplified) This book has not been written to draw attention to myself, nor has it been compiled primarily to inspire God's people. It has been created only at the direction of the Holy Spirit to be a Voice Crying in today's Wilderness of religious thought and practice. It is a call away from the popular religious forms, away from the competing calls of denominational churches, away from the claims of all earthly ties. It is the same cry that has distinguished all of God's servants through the centuries. It was the message of Jesus Himself: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Every true man of God has called for individuals to prepare for the Heavenly Kingdom. And God's Kingdom on this earth is simply His will being done by those of us in earth, as Jesus clearly told us when He taught His disciples to pray: "Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven." God's "Kingdom come" equals His "will ...done in earth as it is in Heaven." You may remember that the first message God gave me after calling me to leave everything in 1941 was Romans 12:1,2: "I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of 289 God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not
conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing
of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
He was leading me from the wilderness of man's finest and
most earnest attempts of religious service to that rarely
experienced realm of God's perfect will. Jesus
consistently demonstrated that God wanted more than legal
fulfilment of duty. He desired to walk with men and lead them
according to His own plans and wishes. Even the divine Son of
God did not do His own will while on this earth--He submitted
joyfully and continually to His Father's will. This, then,
is Christ-likeness: to actually do God's will. This is
what it really means to be a Christian: to actually do what God
directs.
As we read of the first Christians in the book of Acts we are
made conscious of how earnestly they sought the leadership of the
Holy Spirit before they moved along a specific path of action.
When we note how often the Holy Spirit gave them literal
instructions, it becomes obvious that much of the intimate
fellowship with Jesus in the Person of the Holy Ghost has been lost
from our present-day Christianity. These early Christians were true
followers of Jesus in the Person of the Holy Spirit.
In these nearly thirty-years of walking with God He has made
it increasingly clear to my heart that His desires and His
requirements for His followers have not changed. Every man or
woman, boy or girl, who claims Jesus as Saviour must likewise
press on to experience Him as the absolute Lord of his life.
Conversion is only the very beginning in the Christian life, like
unto a newborn infant's first little cry. We then begin the
adventure and high privilege of walking with Jesus: going where
He goes, stopping where He stops, speaking what He speaks,
holding silence when He is silent. We are to learn to
actually follow Him day by day.
290 But dearly beloved--God has revealed to my heart that seldom
in all the ages have men done this. Rarely have persons pressed
on from conversion to learn how to walk with Jesus, how to hear
the Spirit's voice, how to learn His checks and His guidances.
To follow someone's instructions, you must first
receive the instructions.
The great missing link in Christianity through the ages is
simply this: we have not learned how to get our instructions
from God. We have failed to discern God's will. We
have forgotten that God has His own ideas and His own plans and
have gone along with our own conceptions of how His Kingdom
should be run. Terrible to say, but either by choice or by
ignorance we have said with our lives concerning Jesus: "We will
not have this man to be King over us!" We have instead chosen to
be our own rulers. We have become the architects of our own
tragically crippled "Kingdom of God."
This is why the power of God does not operate in our midst.
We have not waited to receive His instruction and have wandered
along a path that seemed right but which proceeded from an
earthly origin, not a heavenly one. Only what God leads will
stand in Judgment. Only those things begun in the Holy Ghost
will reach into Eternity. Any and everything begun in the flesh,
no matter how beautiful or apparently sacred, cannot please God.
The Word tells us that "they that are in the flesh cannot please
God." Can we hear that? --the flesh cannot please God!
Jesus was the only man who ever pleased God the Father
entirely. And it is still His Son alone who pleases God today.
It is only the life of the Son of God living in us that can
please God. And Jesus lives in us and dwells in us only as we do
His will. It is very simple. Jesus makes this clear when He
tells us in Matthew 7:21: "Not everyone that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but
he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.
" Now Jesus Himself tells us this. He informs us
that we will not enter Heaven unless we have done the Father's
will!
291 My loved one--and I love each one of you reading this book
with the divine love of Jesus in my heart--can we possibly begin
to grasp the tremendous seriousness of what Jesus is telling us?
He is saying without question that to truly belong to Him we
must actually do God's will. We must learn what He
wants and follow His directions. We must in actual, everyday
life follow the living Lord Jesus Christ. We must learn how to
hear the voice of Jesus that we might receive our instructions.
You see, to actually be a follower of Jesus is much more
than just having a conversion experience and thinking that is all
we need to make it to Heaven. Having our sins forgiven is
marvelous and miraculous, and we are unworthy of the tiniest drop
of our Saviour's blood. But this is only the very beginning,
howbeit, a glorious beginning! My burden over the years has been
that very few continue on from conversion to discover how truly
marvelous walking with God can actually be. And I know that I
have just a slight glimmer of what God has for us here on earth
if only we could receive it.
Since God's ways are not our ways, and since His thoughts
are far above our own thoughts (even the very best of our
converted thoughts), how then can we possibly learn what God
wants and discover what He is saying to us? How can we learn to
walk with Jesus as the first Christians did? How can we discover
this link which has been lost from the Church through the ages?
A portion of the answer, I humbly believe, is to be found in
the words of Jesus our wonderful Redeemer when He said:
"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow Me." These words are
recorded in some form in Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; and Luke 9:23:
If any man will...," Jesus said. My heart has often been
made heavy by that little word "if," for God has found few in all the
centuries who will truly, whole heartedly believe Him and obey Him.
But in His precious love He opens the opportunity to "any man."
292 The call from Heaven is for us to "come after" Jesus,to
follow His footsteps, to pattern after His example, to be filled with
the Holiness of God, without which no man shall see the Lord.
We are to be filled with those divine qualities which His sweet Spirit
brings forth as fruit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
But in ourselves we are blocked from these priceless virtues
by a raging ocean of Sin. We stand on one bank of this angry sea
which sin has made. On the opposite shore beckons the priceless
rewards made to those who will overcome by the word of their
testimony and the blood of the Lamb. There is no way we can reach
these rewards by our own insights, our own methods, our own
achievements. Jesus was able to walk upon the waves, but alas-- we
quickly sink in spite of our fervent aspirations.
We would be lost in despair if Jesus had abandoned us to the
condemnation of death which bruises everything of earth. This
sense of hopelessness is reflected in the response the disciples
made to Jesus when He stated the divine requirement:
"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood,
you have no life in you." The majority of those who had followed
Him cried out in anger and amazement: "This is a hard saying! who
can hear it?" When God's standards surpassed their own ability
to achieve, they turned back to their own ways and followed the
Son of God no more.
"It is the Self-life in man which is brought to despair by
God's standards of holiness." There is no fleshly wisdom, no
human philosophy, no noble earthly aspiration able to form an
acceptable bridge to God's holiness. We are under the
condemnation of death which cursed all that belonged to earth.
We are of the earth earthy and can only bring forth death, no
matter how noble our intentions nor how high our purpose.
Our only hope is Jesus. He is the Bridge reaching from
death to life. He is the Path, He is the Bread along the Way,
He is the Water to quench our thirst, He is the Prize towards
which we reach. Since we lost all in disobeying God in the
293 Garden of Eden, our path back to God is in Jesus through
obedience. And in order to obey, we must first receive a command
which we can obey. To "come after" Jesus means that we obey
Him. How then do we learn to obey Him?
The simple, but monumental, first step in following Jesus is
found in the next phrase of His command: "Let him
deny himself..." This is wonderfully simple, as are all of
God's truths, yet it will take the help of the Holy Spirit for us
first, to clearly perceive self-denial; and second, actually
begin to apply this to our daily lives.
Our comprehending self-denial is similar to our great,
great-grandparents of a hundred years ago asking, "How can I get
from the East coast to the West coast in only ten hours?" Most
of their friends in the horse and buggy era would have answered,
"It's impossible!" But to the one who had been given the vision
of the jet airplanes which so numerously criss-cross our modern
skies, the reply would have been as simple as "let him
deny himself" --"let him fly," he would have answered.
The spiritual fact of "let him deny himself" is marvelously
simple; but its practice in everyday life is as staggering to our
contemporary understanding as the jet plane would have been to a
Civil War soldier. The idea might seem splendid, the
possibilities almost inexhaustible: but how on earth do we
actually accomplish it?
We learn how to deny Self and obey God by following a
remarkable law which governs the Kingdom of God, and that law
Jesus clearly stated immediately after telling us about denying
Self: "For whosoever shall save his life shall lose it;
and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."
He is telling us that the earth, as man knows it and tries to operate
it, is going in reverse to the law of God's Kingdom. In order to be
the greatest, Jesus tells us, we become the least. In order to gain,
we lose. In losing all, we find all.
Now this is the milk and meat of the Gospel. This will help
awaken tired spiritual muscles and put a spring in our
294 step if we will pull our chair up real close and chew every bite
well. Too many times, I fear, we prefer to have a little sweet
cake of blessing and dismiss ourselves from the table. But
there'll be plenty of divine calories in this meal if you will
keep pressing on in love and appreciation.
God wants to come down and walk arm in arm with us in the
garden of our heart, just as He did with Adam. Adam chose to
disobey God, which threw us into death by sin. Jesus brings us
to life by His shed blood, His death, and resurrection. But to
receive this life we must come low in brokenness and humility.
The Bible tells us that "The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit: a broken and contrite heart, oh God,thou will not despise."
And the promise of God to all men is that He "...is nigh unto them
that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."
However, most of the time we want to get up from this place of contrition
and assume a place of recognition and respect. The secret of
beginning and continuing a walk with God is to remain at the
bottom in humility always in your heart.
It is not the nature of man and woman to go this way,
however. The path of humility is absolutely contrary to our
nature because of the carnal spirit and the carnal mind which we
acquired in the Fall. This carnal mind takes us to death,
according to the apostle Paul and is likewise enmity against God,
for "it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."
This same mind is born into every living child.
Jesus was the only person born of woman without the carnal
nature, for this nature is inherent in Adam's seed. Babies get
their blood from their father. But, praise God, Jesus didn't
have an earthly father. He came by the divine Father, the
Holiness of God. His sacred blood was from God Himself--
undefiled, holy, and pure. Jesus Christ was born of the virgin
Mary, and He was without sin: perfect! He was the only one ever
born in this earth without sin,
295 without this terrible carnal nature. And He became the
propitiation for our sins, that we sinners could be saved.
I am only a sinner saved by grace. Bless the Holy Name of Jesus.
It is this inbred carnal nature which refuses to acknowledge
the right of God to reign over our lives. It is this carnal mind
which resents, resists, and rejects anything of that divine mind
which was in Christ Jesus. Therefore, this carnal mind must be
dethroned. The carnal nature must be slain in order that God can
replace it with His own nature, with the mind of Christ. He
wishes to give us His Spirit, but He can only give His Spirit to
those who obey Him. To do otherwise would be dangerous.
(I Cor 3:1-3)
There is so much carnality in us: much more than we are
aware of. We are angry, envious, spiteful, resentful, critical,
contentious, argumentative, foolish, and jesting. Some people
are willing to relinquish part of their carnal selves, but retain
five or ten percent. God wants to slay this carnal nature out of
us absolutely.
The reason sinners don't want to have much to do with the
church today is because there is carnality in most who claim to
be Christian, and sinners want nothing to do with that kind of
"Christianity." We pray good prayers, sing fine songs, preach
commendable sermons, but the persons who live around our churches
seldom attend. Why?--because Jesus is not often seen much in
those who are praying and preaching and singing.
Oh, my friend!--Jesus wants to live in us! He wants to work
through us in little humble ways of holy love and selfless
giving. But we are trying to have Christianity without the
Cross.
The Cross is simply God's will. The Cross is where the
carnal nature is nailed and crucified. The carnal nature is put
to death on the cross. As Jesus voluntarily went to His Roman
cross, we must volunteer to put the carnal nature on a spiritual
cross. We must voluntarily bring our evil natures
296 and submit them to the hand of God. This is what it really means
to be sanctified wholly: it is to be crucified with Christ in the
inner man. We cannot do this in our own strength. God alone can
slay us.
This carnal nature comes wrapped in a brilliant package
called "Self." When we deny Self we are continuing to hold our
carnal natures to the cross. Jesus could have come down from His
cross any moment He chose. He was not there against His will.
He volunteered to endure that agony, that pain, and that ridicule
"for the joy set before Him." As we follow Him, we also
must volunteer to remain on the cross in self-denial that this carnal
nature may be crucified, buried, and His divine nature resurrected
within us.
We cannot dictate how this carnal Self will be crucified.
Self will not want to die. If we ever get close to death, we
will try to live. He will slay us as we wait before Him. (We
have tried to describe the absolute imperative of waiting in
chapter twenty-three.) It is our nature to get busy and "do"
things. But the Holy Spirit has revealed to my heart that in our
"doing" religious things which appear good, we have undone the
true work of the Kingdom and have missed God's best. If we are
willing to wait on God consistently and lovingly, He will then
bring us to the best at His own time and in His own way.
The speed of our progress in being led of the Spirit is
dependent upon our submission to His will. God moves us ahead as
swiftly as He can in the proportion that He can trust us.
The walk with God, therefore, is not so much our
learning techniques of how to be led of God. The primary
concentration is pressing in the interior life to submit to God's
will so perfectly that He might be able to trust us with a
greater measure of His Spirit.
My friend, are you really determined to wait on God until He
finishes the work He has begun at conversion? Will you let Him
slay out of you that selfish, prideful, jealous, murmuring,
fault-finding, analytical, self-sufficient spirit? He wants
297 to uproot these poisonous weeds so that He might sow in us the
seeds of His divine nature. But most people are unwilling to
wait for God to produce His precious fruit. They want all that
God has for them immediately. Most everybody wants a victorious,
overcoming life in Christ; but often they want the prize without
the race. They desire the ends without the means. They wish to
read a book and find out in a few hours how to walk with God.
We live in a society of so many modern conveniences. We
push a button and our clothes are washed. We press another
button and our meals are cooked. We turn a handle and hot water
pours out in abundance. Growing accustomed to ease in our
earthly lives, we want convenience in our Christianity as well.
We think it is owed us. But that is not the way God brings us
into His likeness.
Spiritual understanding never comes this way. It comes
little by little, step by step, through much suffering We have
been trying to manufacture some wheels of our own inventiveness
in order that we might reach the goal more swiftly and more
easily. But without the suffering we would not properly value
God's mysteries. We would think lightly of divine secrets most
sacred, and God would not be able to trust us. The more you suffer
to get something, the more you treasure it when you have it. Of
course, often the suffering that you will pass through will not
be physical: it will be in the interior life, hidden from the
eyes of those around you. The suffering of the Cross is secret
and personal. And the more that one suffers in self-denial, the
more he is willing to be slain.
The suffering of the soul is terrible, yet it is wonderful.
It is agony, but it is the way to all Life, because in the life
of losing yourself you are going to find everything. Oh, you
will have battles, burdens, struggles, heartaches, and many
difficulties--but you will have everything in Jesus. (And the
Holy Spirit witnesses in my heart when I tell you, "You will have
everything in Jesus!" You, see, these are not just
298 human ideas I am telling you. God is witnessing to my soul from
Heaven that this is true. This is worth all the money you will
ever see and more if you could hear these simple truths and bind
them to your heart forever.)
It is going to take most of us who have been on this
Christian journey a while, a long time to get back to the life of
self-denial. It will be a tremendous adjustment to consistently,
continuously deny what we have been accustomed to do, in order to
do what God wants. He doesn't want us simply denying Self
occasionally to do His will--just going hit-and-miss, once today
and twice next week. No. God wants to walk with us from the
very beginning. In fact, I do not actually walk with God unless
I have denied Self at every step, because in order to follow I
must take up the cross, which is God's will.
In order to perceive His will I will need to die out to all
those carnal things which keep me from hearing His voice. We are
attuned to hear God's voice only as we deny Self and obey His
guidances. Unless Self is consistently denied, our spiritual
hearing is impaired and we cannot receive God's message.
We return to the cross from a life of disobedience by first
confessing our neglect, disobedience, and failures. If we are
just converted, we are able to begin at the same place: at the
foot of the cross. The heart then turns its attention from the
attractions of earth to the eternal goals of Heaven. It is not
an easy assignment, for our natural tendency is not to look to
Jesus in faith: it is to look to ourselves by reason. We learn
to trust God little by little as we humbly read His Word, talk to
Him in prayer, witness to the miracle of Jesus saving us, and
strive with every bit of energy we have to obey the Holy Spirit.
When we begin our walk we are but tiny babes, no matter what
our earthly age; and God lovingly treats us exactly according to
our needs. He will teach us gently, but as swiftly as He can,
about following His guidances. He will
299 attempt to prompt every Christian to some small act of obeying
His voice very soon after conversion or after returning to the
cross. He will ask him to say, "I love Jesus," in a church
service. The Holy Spirit may impress him to ask forgiveness from
a neighbor for getting angry at him last week, or ask him to
apologize to his wife for being stubborn the night before. It
will be little things in the every-day life that God will lead
you to and through. Seldom will God's request come naturally to
the flesh, for the cross of Christ is an instrument on which the
flesh is crucified.
It is impossible for us to discover this new life in Christ
until we get rid of the old. God actually wants us to "die" to
the earthly ambitions and desires in order that we might be
raised with Christ to a heavenly preoccupation while still living
in this world. Paul indicates this paradoxical living while yet
"dead" in Colossians 3:1: "If ye then be risen with
Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth
on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above,
not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your
life is hid with Christ in God."
Now if each new convert will faithfully determine in his
heart to do exactly what God lays on his soul to do, the
marvelous walk with Jesus will begin. A new life actually
in Christ begins to happen. But every step will be
proceeded and accompanied by denying what Self wants and what
Self wishes. Self must never be permitted to make another
decision in your life You must settle it forever and
fix your will like a rock: "Jesus is now Lord of my life. He
sits on the throne of my heart. I will seek His advice on where
I am to go, what I am to do, how I am to dress, what I am to
speak." Your life will become very simply "no longer I, but Christ."
I say "simply," and yet it is by no means effortless. It
will take all the energy you possess, all the determination, all
the crying and pleading for God's help and mercy to let you day
by day, moment by moment, breath by breath, and yes--second by
second--resist all evil and the demands of
300 the earth to wait upon God and do humbly and consistently in
love only what He directs you to do. All hell is
against this kind of intimate walk with God, and it will only be
by God's grace that any one of us will be able to continue. But
praise be unto God, we will discover with apostle Paul that in
our own weakness He is made strong.
The devil and well-meant counselors of the earth will try to
tell you that by waiting on God you are losing time and wasting
time. They will tell you that there are souls to be won and many
things to be accomplished. But the secret of life is in waiting
upon God. While you are waiting on God you are learning to love
Him, you are learning to praise Him, you are learning to commune
with Him, you are learning how to recognize His voice. Sometimes
as you wait you will be praying; often you will be listening;
occasionally you will be shown a need in your heart, a glaring
weakness of the soul which is hindering His Spirit from working
through you. Then you may adore Him even more and meditate upon
His suffering, His sorrow, and His heartbreak over a lost and
dying world.
While you are waiting you are actually climbing in His own
purpose. You may not be permitted to observe it, but He is
lifting you to His own likeness as you go deeper in humility and
in the knowledge of your own unworthiness and nothingness. Quite
to your surprise, you will discover that from time to time this
new found Friend will direct you to a needy soul. When you least
anticipate it He will have you in the right place at the right
time, and some precious heart will be converted because of Jesus
working through you; someone may be healed or a dear soul lifted
up. You will be so thrilled and filled with joy because Jesus
did it! He was the one. You were simply privileged to be there
and have His Kingdom work through you. Oh, glory to the Lamb of
God, even Jesus!
Here is where the true adventure begins. In fact, God will
give you such surprises in His fellowship that you will
301 wonder why so few have gone this path before. The earth will be
seeking pleasures in games, fairs, parties, and sensual
experiences; but you will be so overjoyed with the work of the
Holy Spirit in leading, in cleansing, and in instructing that
people will say, "What is wrong with them? It looks like they
don't have much of anything, yet they're carrying on as if they
had everything."
But we are not to seek for adventure, for miraculous events,
or even to be led by the Holy Spirit. We are simply to pour love
back to God, honor Him, adore Him, and try to praise Him for His
name's sake. We are not to become tense or nervous about how to
die out, how to be slain, how to be crucified, or how to obey.
We are to relax like a little child, remain right down at the
bottom in brokenness, and simply trust God for all things.
You see, there are wonderful promises to those who actually
trust God. The one which opens to every good and perfect gift
is found in Proverbs 3:5-6: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart,
and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge
Him and He shall direct thy paths."
Since the God of the entire universe has promised to guide
us as we relinquish our own authority on our lives, give up our
own limited views of life, and turn to Him as the only source of
life and joy--we can rest assured that He will do exactly that.
As we wait, He will teach us about self-denial in little humble
ways. He will actually begin to direct our lives. And when He
begins to take control, then we must gladly abandon our own plans
to follow His command.
Throughout this pilgrimage I have tried to share but a few
instances of self-denial: where my plans and my wishes had to be
laid aside, and what God suddenly told me to do then became my
plan.
I recall leaving our home in Hartford City several years ago
to get a quart of milk, some bread, and meat. I hadn't gone more
than four to five hundred feet when Jesus spoke
302 to my heart. I had not simply been sitting around waiting for
God to tell me something to do. I had been on my knees in prayer
and in the Word--watching, waiting, crying, and praying hour
after hour and day after day.
God said, "I want you to go home, get dressed to travel,
take the bus to Muncie, and go to Parker City to visit T. L.
Smith." What I had planned for that day had to be forgotten. My
plans ended and God's began.
After getting the groceries I took what little money we had,
walked down to the bus station, boarded the bus to Muncie, then
took another bus to my home town. Coming into Parker I passed my
wife's parents' home, and I always liked to stop there because I
loved them like my own mother and father. But this morning I was
not able to stop to see them or even my own folks. Self had to
be denied. I was to do what God had told me to do.
When I walked into Tom Smith's little store his wife
exclaimed, "Oh, Brother Helm! I'm so glad to see you. Tom has
been sick. He's swollen in his tonsils and is feverish. He has
been praying all morning that God would tell you to come."
And God had done just that. I give Him the praise for this.
But I could not continue what I had planned for that day. I
could not remain in the Word and prayer. Self had to be denied
in order to do what God had said.
Going back into this man's bedroom where he lay ill, I fell
on my knees, looked up into the face of Jesus in Heaven, and He
came by the power of the Holy Ghost to take the fever out of this
precious man. In a short while Tom was out of bed, dressed, and
getting a haircut at the barber shop. That night he went to
prayer meeting and told them what God had done for him. I didn't
plan it or arrange it. The Holy Ghost was the Leader and Guide.
Even before God called me to leave everything, He was
teaching me about walking with Him in self-denial. It was 1939.
I had entered a store and had taken but three steps
303 when the Lord told me to stop and go to a certain man's home. I
ran to the car, drove to his home, and found that he had just
returned from the hospital. I didn't understand all about the
situation but I knew that he was very sick. "Jesus has brought
me and I want to pray," I told him. In my feeble way I started
to pray, and God became so precious to us that it seemed like
Jesus came down in a white robe and stood a few feet from me to
the left. Thrilled, I said, "I can go now, Jesus has heard my
cry."
His insurance company had insisted that he undergo more
tests at Robert Long Hospital in Indianapolis, and there the
doctors gave him certain tests and X-rays, just as the physicians
had done in our county hospital. After a few days, seven young
doctors and one older doctor filed into his room and stood around
his bed observing him. "We want to ask you a question," one of
the doctors said. "We have the X-rays from the hospital in
Winchester which clearly show a growth the size of two fists. We
would like to know the name of the surgeon who performed this
delicate operation and removed this growth. We cannot find a
scar where he cut it out or where he sewed you up. Would you
tell us, please, this surgeon's name?"
The man looked up from his hospital bed into the face of
that physician and declared, "His name is Jesus the Christ."
God had done this. He had stopped me at my own affairs and
sent me on an assignment of His Kingdom. The work which he
accomplished was a miracle of His grace and power. But He could
work through this poor, limited, unworthy servant only because I
was obeying His command and doing His
will.
Do you see what I would have missed if I had not forsaken my
plans to do what Jesus bid me do? Oh, my friend!--How much have
we missed in the past years, months, and days because we have
failed to deny self? Because we have failed to wait on God that
He might teach us how to hear His voice and be led of the Spirit?
304 But even as I am trying my very best to explain about the
absoluteness of denying Self, most people will not realize what I
mean. Many will tend to think that self-denial means simply to
go to church twice a week, to wear clothing of a particular
style, to participate in only specific types of activities, to
refuse to eat some foods, or to attend only certain types of
entertainment.
Self-denial may involve some of the above; but true
self-denial is simply doing what God directs instead of what you
want to do. And we will never know what God wants until
we come to nothingness in love and wait before Him so that He can
teach us how to hear and obey.
It is our inner attitude of heart which determines: "Above
everything else, I want to follow Jesus!" Every other human
activity must become secondary to the single burning desire to be
God's true servant. This is why Jesus said in Luke
14:26: "If any man comes to me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea,
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
If there is anything in our life which takes precedence over
our loving, listening to, and following Jesus-- then we
cannot be His disciples. As soon as we refuse to put
Him first absolutely in our daily lives, we have ceased to be His
disciple. This is the Narrow Way. And most people will not
hear this. Unless we have waited on God, willing to let
Him crucify out of us this carnal nature, we will continue to
think that simply believing on Jesus intellectually, going to
church, knowing the Bible, and doing good things will get us to
Heaven.
But unless Jesus is absolutely first in our everyday life--
unless we are walking in intimate fellowship with God and
carrying out His will which He is telling us moment by moment
from Heaven--then we proceed in a life of self-assertion, by-
passing the way of self-denial and the cross.
We only hear God's voice as we have waited before Him
through the years to learn the operations, the checks, and the
guidances of the Holy Spirit. We only learn about being
305 led of God as we actually obey Him and let Him lead us step by
step. If we do not wait sufficiently, we will go ahead
unknowingly in fleshly self-assertion rather than in self-denial
and will miss the Kingdom of God.
God has so many wonderful lessons to teach us, but they are
all to be learned along the road of the cross, the path one walks
on the legs of "trust" and "obey". God wishes us to know this
Way. He wants us to lose our lives for His sake and the
Gospel's. Jesus came to teach us this way and to demonstrate it.
This is what man has rejected. God has a plan for every life--a
beautiful, marvelously exciting plan--but few have remained in
His school long enough, quiet enough, faithful enough in prayer
and witnessing in the Word; obedient enough so that He might
teach us how He checks us in our conversation, in our behaviour,
in our plans, and in our schedules.
If only we would be willing to consistently wait with joy
upon God, He will refine us. There are fires to pass through as
we wait which will burn out the dross and leave pure gold. But
rarely will we stay in His hand long enough to be purified. It
is true that when we are abiding in God's hand, no man can pluck
us out; but we can get out of His hand simply by asserting Self.
We get out of His hand by not praying and waiting upon God. We
get out of His hand and into our own hands.
After so many experiences of disobedience following
conversion, people are dulled to the voice of God, continuing in
lives of self-assertion without even knowing it. They
have the orthodoxy and the external pattern of acceptable
Christianity, but there is no power of God operating through
their life. There is no witness of the Holy Spirit. Often these
individuals are the older people who have failed to mind God
years ago. They have become hardened to the sweet voice of the
Spirit and are only in a form of godliness. They are walking in
the exterior life. But the Holy Spirit works through the
interior life. Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you."
306 I love all people and I love all churches. I have met
wonderful people all through the United States and over the
world. But God has called me to cry out to every church, every
minister, and every layman that we have been trying to have
Christianity without the very first step of Christianity--and
that is self-denial. We cannot take one step after
Jesus unless we deny Self and listen for God's guidance.
But we in the church have been trying to have Christianity
without the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We have been going on
in our own programs, in our own missionary ventures, in our own
educational systems, in our building projects, in our visitation
efforts. We have been trying to bring the Kingdom of God to life
through our own efforts, our own talents, our own personalities,
our own preaching, our own singing. Every leader in every church
is precious, and I am not trying to find fault with anyone. But
I must cry out to all our dear leaders that we in the professed
church have lost the Kingdom of God. Dr. E. Stanley Jones said
exactly that in his last book, "The Unshakable Kingdom and the
Unchanging Person."*
Because we in the church have lost the Kingdom, we have been
going on in the wilderness. We have been having the same
program year after year. We are in a form. We sing, we pray, we
testify a little, and we preach. It is monotony. Like the
children of Israel, we go around and around, getting ever further
from the land of Caanan.
But God wants to take us in a straight line to the promised
land--which is simply walking in the Spirit, doing His will,
waiting upon Him, losing all that He might be all. We have
been trying to do what God wants without doing what He says.
Few people in all the ages have been willing to simply let
Jesus lead them and be all to them. We in the church still want
strings attached so that we might control to some measure. We
have a little idea which direction we want things to
* Jones, E. Stanley, "The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging
Person," Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 1972 (pp.
18, 21, 22, 72, and 73).
307 go. We want great crowds, a big Sunday School, an attractive
building. We desire popularity. We want people to join our
particular group. We want our special ideas to be accepted and
acknowledged. Most every body of believers wants a little
something for themselves, their church, their denomination, or
their organization.
I have seldom experienced any body of believers praying in
true prevailing supplication for God to send revival to any
church outside of their own organization or form. Have you often
heard reports of a Methodist Church joining as one person to pray
for the local Church of God one mile away? Have you heard of the
Nazarenes crying out for God to send a sweet awakening to the
Friends? Our prayers are many times still very self-centered and
self-assertive, because we are still manipulating our own goals,
and not God's goals.
God is seeking a people who will simply and totally be His--
willing to be lowly, unnoticed, unrecognized, and unlauded by
religious notables. The true power of God will operate through
these lowly, contrite, self-emptied ones who know that they are
undeserving of the least thing God has for them. He will
wonderfully use these who have no plans of their own and no
desires except to be vessels through which Jesus might be
exalted.
This is the company of believers who are the true Church of
God. Any lowly heart who is willing to die out to the earth and
lose all for Jesus is the active member in the universal Church
of Christ victorious. God's true Church is not a specific body
of people who have called themselves by a certain name. It is
not a particular religious order which prescribes to certain
theological truths. The true Church of God is made up of every
blood-washed sinner who remains lowly at the cross in self-
denial, actually following Jesus under the cross. The Church of
God is that body of believers which the Holy Spirit truly
indwells; where Jesus is truly the Head; His mind is within them
and the Holy Spirit is the Leader and Guide.
308 I fear that we leaders of the church have been trying to do
the work of the Kingdom in our own skeleton, in our own
ideologies, in our own structure of reason and beauty. Much of
it is good and attractive, but it isn't born of the Spirit. One
can have the earthly best, but if it doesn't thrust to every heart
the divine imperative of self-denial and the cross, it isn't
sufficient.
The Holy Spirit has revealed to me a very serious fact. He
has shown me that the church today has become infected with the
spiritual diseases of man's philosophies and carnal energies.
Unless we bring to an end all of our best-intended attempts to
work for God, confess our disobedience and sin, and return lowly,
broken, and torn to His feet to be healed--we may possibly bring
new converts into our assemblies and expand our churches, but
every newborn we bring in will have the same diseases that we
have. They will be brought into our fellowship and become
infected with the viruses of self-assertion and respectable
Christianity, never knowing that they are not walking with the
Christ of Calvary. They will become crippled by self-assertion
and blinded by an active carnal mind, never knowing that they are
stumbling toward an eternal death.
Our job in the church is not to bring people into our
fellowship. We cannot do it. Our assignment is to wait upon
God. When He is then able to cleanse the church of those things
which grieve Him and crush the lambs, then He will come through
that holy and purified body of believers, move them to spiritual
travail, and bring souls to a truly divine birth into the
Kingdom. (Isaiah 66:8b--"For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought
forth her children.") And when God brings them in they will be
beautiful, healthy lambs. The glory of God will be in their souls,
and there will be enough milk in the udders of the sheep to keep them
alive and well (and the lambs feed only from the sheep--their milk
the joy of the Lord pouring from obedient hearts).
We in the church have been trying to work out that which
309 was not our business to do. Our assignment is simply to wait on
God, for He can do more in seconds than men can do in centuries.
We have been trying to work out all the methods and get people
in; we have tried to talk to them, persuade them, and change
their lives.
But God simply wants us to become a people who will wait
upon Him so that He can slay us and slay us and slay us in order
that He can then have full control of us. He could do wonders
for His glory if only He could find a body willing to undergo the
divine surgery necessary to be truly used of Him.
The Lord wants us to die out to recognition, station, and
popularity. We must come to the cheerful willingness to be on
the bottom forever. God can only fully use the broken and
humble. He can work through others to a measure, but His true
presence and power of the Kingdom operates through the lowly:
that which the world rejects and thinks foolish.
There is great glory here. There is great joy. Heaven is
here in His hand. But the devil, carnality, and all of hell will
not let you hear this. Even while you are reading this you will
have to labor and cry and press in your heart to truly get hold
of these sacred truths and begin to apply them to your life. We
are in a ferocious battle against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of darkness of this world, and spiritual
wickedness in high places. They steal any spiritualtruth from you
often before it can even reach your heart, unless you plead the
blood of Jesus over your heart and mind, lifting the Shield of
Faith over your soul. This exhortation would probably need to be
shared a few hundred times to most congregations before they would
begin to hear the urgency and seriousness of self-denial.
That is the real purpose of this book--to lovingly persuade
people to really turn from themselves unto the living God and
actually do His will. Not just follow God in form and in word,
which is what many churches are now doing; but actually come to the
basic simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus
310 Christ in self-denial, trust, and obedience. It's going to be an
awful thing in Judgment if we have been in the church but missed
the will of God; if we have been moral and upright, but have not
waited on God that He might work through us His will.
In all of my ministry I have found very few individuals, let
alone entire churches, who have been willing to humble
themselves. But unless we actually come to nothingness and begin
to walk with God, we are not actually the Church. We are not
in the Kingdom of God and we are not in the true Church of God
unless we truly forsake all of our own ways and follow day by day
the leadership of the Holy Spirit. If we do not really
do God's will--if we are not faithful and true as little
children--we are stumbling blocks instead of stepping stones.
If we ministers in the church have not really minded God--
walked in the Spirit by self-denial and obeyed in humility, not
trying to know so much but simply coming to childlikeness--then
we have taken the money of the church and deceived the flock. If
we have not embraced the cross in the interior life, if we have
not cried out in agony within our souls to do God's will, then we
are going to be held accountable in Judgment (and right now God
tells me, "I guide thee, direct thee, and tell thee what to do.")
We are a thousand miles short of the will of God in most all
churches. We have people on our boards and on our councils who
are not walking with God under a cross. We have church leaders
who are trying to maneuver the business of the body of Christ.
Jesus tells me in my heart that if we try to run the church
with a carnal mind--if there is unsubmitted Self in our lives--we
are as dangerous to that body as five rattlesnakes would be to a
tiny child in his crib. It is that dangerous for one man or one
woman in the church leadership to be carnal and not do God's
will: it is that deadly to the lambs and the sinners who are
watching the lives of those people.
311 You see, beloved, we must have a cleansing of all our
precious church leaders from the very highest to the least. I
love every church leader so very much; I love each one with all
my heart. It takes love to tell the real truth in kindness and
gentleness. But the Holy Spirit reveals to my heart that if I am
in the church and have the slightest bit of carnality in my
heart, then I am as dangerous to that body as rattlesnake venom.
I will poison the body even when I am trying to help it. (All
church leaders whose hearts are right with God will not resent
this revelation; but all hearts not yielded wholly to God will be
offended at it. Psalms 119:165.)
This is more serious than I can tell you, for rarely will a
congregation rise any higher than its spiritual leader. We
cannot lift anyone higher than the level on which we stand. If
only we could convince our precious ministers of all our churches
to really wait upon God and walk with Him so that His power could
truly work through them. And if we have not waited on God until
He can teach us ministers how to stop or go at His command; or to
discern what the Holy Spirit wishes for our times together as a
body of believers; then we are like teachers who do not know our
ABC's. We may have the finest orthodoxy, but there is little power
of God in us. The true love of God isn't pouring through us as it
could and should.
It is this divine love which regulates the power of God. It
is our love to God which determines our self-denial. We will
seek His will and deny Self in proportion to our love for Jesus.
What grieves my heart so badly is that many of our churches are
disobedient and don't know it. Many of our precious people are
living self-assertive lives of disobedience and haven't the
slightest idea that they are doing it.
The world is dying for God's love. Sinners don't need our
theologies and denominational ideas: they need the love of Jesus
to make them know how wretched and empty their lives are. And
this love cannot--I repeat: cannot --flow through a
disobedient heart. I am not speaking of an earthly
312 love, a mere refined human affection. I'm talking about the
divine flow of God's love which pours like a mountain torrent
through the crucified, yielded heart to every living person.
This love contains no bitterness, no criticism, no harshness, no
fault-finding, no murmuring. This love forgives all wrongs and
overlooks all misunderstandings; it holds no grudges and makes no
complaints; it is dead to all self-pity and alive to all praise.
This is the love which makes men of all nations one in the
Spirit.
And when you gather a few people together who love one
another with this holy, pure, heavenly love--God will come down
and make His abode among them. The power of the Holy Ghost will
move through that body and sinners will be born into the Kingdom
by the divine power of God. We know very little of such divine
power. We have lived so far from His perfect will that God
has been unable to trust us with much of His presence.
If the power which fell on Homer Pumphrey and me in August
of 1942 in Circleville, Ohio would fall in any church or in any
place, I know that all infidels and atheists would be saved in
twenty-two seconds. The power would be so great that they would
cry out, "Oh, God! Forgive me! I didn't know you were so great!
Have mercy on me, Jesus!" Confession would leap right out of
them. They couldn't help it.
This sacred event occured while Homer and I were in a hotel
room in Circleville, Ohio. I made the statement, "I am convinced
that very few people in all the world have everything that God
wants them to have and are doing everything God wants them to
do."
My precious brother took exception to my statement and
replied, "Do you mean to tell me that these people are not doing
all God wants them to do and don't have all He wants them to
have?"--and he named over some of the renowned spiritual leaders
of that day.
I answered him, "Homer, the Spirit is grieved." And when I
said that, the power of God filled that room as a mighty
313 wind which lasted for three seconds. The glory of God was
everywhere. It filled every little crack and crevice. It was
the greatest power of God I have ever experienced. It was so
powerful that Homer thought we were going to be translated. The
words came right out of him, "What is God doing--is He calling
apostles? What does He want me for--an armorbearer?" He hardly
knew he was saying it. The words simply came out of him.
Over thirty years ago God descended on that room as a
testimony of His presence to the fact that His Spirit has been
grieved by almost all mortals in all the ages. He was giving
witness with His mighty power that if only He could find a body
of believers willing to lose all and come to nothingness, He
would come through that body and lift Jesus to the world, and
sinners would then be drawn to Him as on the day of Pentecost or
even greater.
We have been attempting to lift Jesus by own own methods,
our own preaching, our own personalities. But that is not the
"lift" about which Jesus spoke in John 12:32 when He said:
"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
Jesus was first placed on the cross and lifted up by cruel,
carnal, wicked hands. The next lift will be by tender, gentle,
loving, broken, obedient lives who have waited on God until all the
carnal things are removed and the love of God flows freely among them.
When God finds such a body, then He will come up through that body and
and lift Jesus to all the world in the might of the Kingdom of God.
When this spiritual lift of the divine Son of God occurs,
all persons in that area will be drawn to God like a magnet.
They will not be able to resist this great moving power of God.
This mighty drawing of Jesus could begin the Holy Ghost Revival
to the World which I have been anticipating now for over thirty
years. This could be the "latter rain" (James 5:7) which will
precede the return of Jesus. It is coming someday soon, whenever
He can find a body willing to pay the price and truly follow Him
daily in self-denial.
314 We have witnessed many marvelous things in Jesus, seeing a
few saved here and there, and I am not trying to minimize what
God has been doing anywhere on the earth. But what God
wants to do, if only He could find a body yielded wholly
to His will, is so tremendous that I am not able to get to it
with words.
But we are not to seek to do something big for Jesus. We
are not to try to work up a big revival or try to whip up a
world-wide evangelistic campaign. The secret is this: as a body
of believers we must all come to nothingness together. As Jesus
permitted His body to be nailed on the cross as a sacrifice for
sins, we in the living body of Christ must make the same
sacrifice.
Can we hear it? Jesus gave Himself a sacrifice for us, so
now the body should be willing to make the same sacrifice.
We must literally, as His body, in the interior life, go to the
cross and die out to everything of earth: be willing to perish
to all earthly achievements and the religious world.
And from this slain body God will bring the same power which
raised Jesus from the dead and lift the resurrected Lord to the
entire world.
This is the secret of all spiritual success in the church.
But I preached many years before I knew that. This is what God
is trying to cry through me to all churchdom: "We must die out
to Self. We must lose all to find all. We must learn how to
obey. We must go to the cross as Jesus went to the cross."
The absolute which we in the church must face is the
imperative of the cross in the daily life of the believer. We
have had enough preaching to last for centuries to come. We have
enough devotional books to encourage us for years. There has
been sufficient discussion and review of theologies and doctrines
of holiness. What is now needed is an actual life lived in
obedience to the commands of Jesus. We must stop talking
"about" Christianity and begin letting Christ live through us.
315 He will not live through us as we think He ought. He has
His own plans and His own unique desires for our lives. We will
learn these plans only as we wait upon Him day after day and
begin to learn how to be led of Him.
Most all men have wanted to squeeze God into certain limited
molds and unchanging patterns. But when God creates, all of
Nature obeys His will in an infinite variety of ways. Each tiny
snowflake becomes a very special individual; each microscopic
crystal forms slightly different from every other. Likewise, as
He creates His Kingdom on earth, God will use infinite variety in
leading His servants. No technique or applied methods could
contain the unlimited inventiveness of our Heavenly Father as He
leads His children to do His will. Men have always wanted rules
to follow, when God has preferred to find humble followers who
wanted to be ruled.
The Word tells us that "to as many as received
Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons
of God." We have too long camped at the foot of this glorious
mountain of promise, assuming that, because we have "believed" on
Jesus that we are fulfilling all the requirements of sonship. But
another scripture tells us quite plainly that there is a difference
in "the power to become" a son, and actually "being" a son.
Paul reveals to us that the requirement of true sonship lies in
"for as many as are led by the Spirit of God."
In order to be a true son of God, we must press on from
conversion in order to be instructed in the mysteries of the
Kingdom of God. To become a son is a lengthy process, and we
must needs be about the business of "becoming." We need to be
weaned from the patterns and inner proclivities of the earth to a
heavenly vision and an eternal longing. We cannot permit
ourselves to set our sights on certain patterns of religious
achievement, on gifts, or on a particular goal of effectiveness
within the accepted church structure. We must learn what it
means simply to walk with God.
316 God's pattern for every man and woman has always been
different; so we cannot look to any of His servants for a
specific model of activity. However, we can look to Jesus for
all instruction, finding in the Biblical record His teachings,
His pattern of living, and His example in lowly servitude. Above
all, we have His ringing cry: "A new commandment I give
unto you...that ye love one another as I have loved you."
A lifetime would not suffice to meditate sufficiently upon
the implications and practice of loving one another as He loved
us. In fact, all eternity will probably never reach the limits
of His love, which we are to embrace to the fullest of our
limited capacities, by His grace and help. But this divine love
is the binding adhesive between the numberless individuals making
up His body on earth. His love flowing from one to another
becomes the sinew and fiber which joins finger to hand, wrist to
arm, and creates the living organism of His glorious Church.
God has sent this voice crying in the wilderness as a
clarion call to true obedience to the Holy Spirit. As you are
reading these final words you are choosing, or are approaching
the choice, either to be a true follower of Jesus, or simply a
believer in Christian principles. When Jesus was sent to earth,
a great number believed the principles of God's revelations to
the patriarchs and the prophets--but few, if any, were willing to
acclaim Him boldly as the Messiah.
Very few have ever listened to God's men from the beginning.
The religious leaders were unable to recognize Jesus, and He was
the fulfillment of the revelation which they sincerely served.
Most all Christian leaders, likewise, have failed to recognize
God's servants. The established church persecuted Huss, Madam
Guyon, Bunyan, Luther, Wesley, Finney, E. E. Byrum, and hundreds
more. The Power of this earth had blinded our precious religious
leaders so that they feel threatened by God's true servants.
Even when one tries
317 to point out the blindness to God's true servants of past
religious leaders, today's leaders say, "Well, that was in the
past. We have the revelation today. Our way is the true way.
We are in the main stream of God's revelation."
(Very rarely has there been a church leader of any position
or authority who has truly humbled himself and become submissive
to the will of God. Every truly crucified church leader will not
feel badly towards me for this declaration.)
In all my ministry I have loved every church. I have tried
to encourage every minister and every layman. I have never
talked about any denomination or any leader or any church. When
I am in the pulpit God often comes through me in judgment to call
the church back to true holiness and purity. But when I am
alone, I never talk against the church or abuse the ministry.
Yet some church leaders think that I am a false prophet and
that I am out to get church property. A number of religious
leaders are afraid of me. They will often believe stories about
us from people who have never heard us or known us, rather than
persevere themselves to find out what we are really like. And it
is a dangerous thing, beloved, to believe a lie.
It is the nature of a heart filled with divine love to
believe the best of everyone. But Satan so fights this message
of self-denial and the cross, that some church leaders have been
willing to believe that I am out to cause division and start my
own church; when all I am trying to do is what God has called me
to do: and that is encourage every person to actually follow
Jesus, and unite all believers around the world into a fellowship
of divine love.
(It hurts my heart to hear the terrible things that people
say about me; and yet God keeps me happy. I am rejoicing in my
soul even though my heart is broken for the church. Jesus has
told us that every true follower would be hated even as He was
hated.)
318 Often the minister today is under considerable pressure from
his denominational hierarchy to conform to certain patterns,
schedules, training materials, and financial processes. I doubt
if many laymen know a fraction of the pressures under which the
precious ministers must labor today. They need our urgent prayer
daily for Satan is trying to discourage them from being true and
holy to their calling. Please hold up the hands of all true
church leaders by praying for them, encouraging them with letters
and words of appreciation, and by being faithful to all that God
is calling you unto.
By His choice (for God has always chosen the foolish
things of this world to confound the wise) I am one of His
representatives on this earth, and because of this speak for Him
when I ask: "Won't you, dear one, this very moment determine with
all the strength of your heart, soul, mind, and body to truly follow
Jesus day by day and second by second in self-denial and
obedience, the Lord being your Helper?" I can guarantee that you
will never experience greater fulfillment than in this lowly walk
with Jesus.
If you were to hear the matchless voice of Jesus Himself
audibly declare to you, "If you do not bear your cross
and come after me, you cannot be my disciple..." --would you
dare reply, "I know a better way"? And yet, that is what most
persons have answered by the pattern of their lives since Jesus made
known this minimum requirement of true discipleship two thousand
years ago.
But I urge each of you, as you are about to complete this
humble pilgrimage--do not simply lay this book aside as another
story. Whenever the Gospel of Jesus Christ is presented by the
Holy Spirit, those hearing must make a decision. You choose now
either to truly come after Jesus, the Son of God, by denying Self
to take up God's will daily and follow the Holy Spirit--or you
choose, as many have decided through the ages, to reject the Way
of the Cross.
The way of self-denial and the cross is not hard. Oh
beloved, it is the very opposite! The way of the transgressor
319 is hard. Following after God's perfect will is the only way
of complete inner fulfillment. God will never mock his
children by promising them the most consummate experience of
Life, then deceive them into a dull and miserable existence. The
great mystery hidden in the cross is that it is the door which
opens to all life! This central truth of all living is so aptly
captured in the marvelous hymn:
Jesus, I my cross have taken...
All to leave and follow thee;
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou, from hence, my all shalt be:
Perish every fond ambition,
All I've sought or hoped, or known;
Yet how rich is my condition:
God and Heav'n are still my own!
--Henry F. Lyte 1793-1847
This is a beginning for each of you reading this book--
whether you are a Sunday School teacher, plumber, secretary,
machinist, nurse, mechanic, psychologist, minister, layman, or
high school student. You are either beginning on the upward path
of seeking first God's will and His Kingdom or you are
beginning a darkening path towards self-desires which has already
led millions and millions to heartbreak and eternal destruction.
Which beginning are you choosing as you turn this final
page?
Important Notice to Each Reader of This Book
We trust this first reading of A Voice in the
Wilderness has strengthened and challenged your heart.
May we humbly suggest that you read through it carefully once
again before sharing this copy with a loved one or a friend?
The primary purpose of sharing this pilgrimage is to alert
the church to the absolute imperative of denying Self to
obey the Lord Jesus. Because such an inner spiritual
practice in daily life is so contrary to all the patterns of
the earth, the Holy Spirit has revealed to Rev. Helm that
most of us will need to re-read this book nine or ten times
before this simple command from Jesus--to deny our own
moment-by-moment desires in order to obey the promptings of
the Holy Spirit--actually gets into our hearts and becomes a
part of our interior lives.
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