57. Live unto God
Live unto God
Now we come to the last imperative, which is the imperative call of the cross. You will find it inII Corinthians 5:15, just three words in that verse, “Henceforth … unto Him.” That is the imperative call of the cross, that we should live no longer unto ourselves but unto Him who died for us and rose again. That is the natural conclusion of obeying the command and of yielding to the claim of the cross. It means simply to acknowledge without any reservation the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Note these passages: “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living” (Romans 14:9); “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36); “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth” (Php 2:10). This supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ is both exclusive and inclusive. It is exclusive inasmuch as it forbids anyone or anything rivaling it. Christ is the one absolute Lord, and the acknowledgment of the supremacy of Christ implies the denial of the right of anything else to be supreme.
About the middle of the eighteenth century there was the last of the rebellions in Scotland. It was called the Jacobite Rebellion. It was an attempt on the part of the Stuarts to regain the throne of Britain and place the one who was called “The Young Pretender,” Prince Charles, Bonny Prince Charlie, as he is called in Scottish songs, on the throne. He went on the northeast coast of Scotland and set up his standard there, and his first meeting was with a great Highland chief, Cameron. Lochiel knew more about the situation than his prince, and tried, by every possible means in his power, to dissuade him from what he knew was a hopeless effort. The prince listened to him, and then sadly said, “Well, I suppose I shall have to go forward without the support of Lochiel, who my father assured me would always be with me to guide and strengthen and counsel me.” This was too much for Lochiel, and flinging himself at the feet of his prince he said, “Nay, my prince shall have Lochiel and everything that Lochiel possesses, and everyone over whom Lochiel has any authority, for anything that he wants to be done.”
Now it is just an unreserved acceptance of the supremacy of Christ like that, that Christ is wanting, such an unreserved acceptance of his supremacy that the Lord Jesus Christ is asking from you and from me. That is the call of Christ. Do not let anyone of us imagine that there can be a dual sovereignty in our lives, Christ and something else. Christ never goes halves with anything or with anyone; it is all or nothing. That is the claim that He makes, and when you respond to that claim as Lochiel responded to the call of his prince, you can love everybody and you will find that everything else in life falls into its right place. This supremacy that is very decided in its exclusiveness is as clear in its inclusiveness. While it excludes every rival, it brings under its rule and government the whole man. And if that call is answered God will withhold no good thing from you. Life is full of the most splendid possibilities for the soul that will dare to be unreservedly true to the supremacy of Christ. Life begins to glow with a wonderful glory, when, at the heart of it, there is a yieldedness that makes Christ sovereign.
What does this inclusiveness mean? Let me try and put it simply before you. What does this inclusive supremacy mean? It means the supremacy of Christ over our minds. There is no channel through which Satan is operating today with more success than through the mind. “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of those who believe not,” and who are perishing, and the mind of the unbeliever hates the cross, it revolts against the claim of the cross. It is always toning down the language of the cross or dispensing with the language of the cross altogether, just because the cross is God’s weapon for tearing aside the Satanic veil and letting the light in.
Even with the Christian there may be disinclination to allow the Lord Jesus to have the mind, the intellect, yielded.
There is a man on the other side of the water whom I know, one of the best men whom I have ever met, but when he was at the university he was a yielded Christian on every point except his mind. He was afraid to let Christ have his intellect, full control of his intellect. But he was brought by the Spirit of God to that point where he yielded his intellect, and found the Holy Spirit flooding and filling him, and his intellect was sanctified. You and I need sanctified intellects today, sanctified minds, yielded, Christ-controlled minds. Remember that a mind unsurrendered is a mind unguarded, and that is the reason why I believe there are so many minds today that are becoming the dumping grounds of all the possible fancies that are floating about in the air inspired and dictated by the devil, and they are getting led off the path and deluded and deceived.
You know that the battle of Eden was fought in the mind. Eve yielded her mind to the evil one, and the moment she believed and took in the devil’s lie, the truth of God went out. She took in death, and life went out; she took in darkness, and light went out; and through the stream of humanity’s life the poison has flowed, and it is flowing today. God is so concerned about getting the minds of men and women yielded to him and controlled by him, because the mind is the strategic position, and therefore we have to ask now: Is there deliverance for the mind? Yes, there is, at the cross.
Read2 Corinthians 10:3-6, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.” The cross is the place of deliverance, the way of the cross is God’s weapon to destroy the Satanic veil that hangs over the minds of men today; and we want to recognize that the unyielded mind and uncontrolled mind, the mind uncontrolled by Christ, belongs to the old creation, and therefore it has to go to the cross, it has to be dealt with by the cross, by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That uncontrolled mind has to be deliberately, by faith, and the act of the will, on the ground of Calvary, taken from the enemy and put to the cross, and then God trusted to give a new mind, a clear mind, a wise mind, a sound mind; for that is God’s gift to His children. God gives us sound minds; and a mind under the control of the Spirit of God is such a mind as that. He wants that mind of yours, and if there is some point there where you are not surrendered, that is the imperative call of the cross to you now. The cross claims the supremacy of your thought life. In the second place, Christ claims the supremacy over the heart, and I want you to read two passages of Scripture, “Out of the heart proceedeth evil thoughts,” andHebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit ….” The first passage is a picture of the natural heart, which supplies the life. The second passage is the heart under treatment by the great Surgeon of love. And how does He treat it? By the knife of the Word, and whatever the knife of the Word lays bare there is shown to you and to me the way of life and victory.
One of God’s great purposes with you and with me in these days is to make us know how to get soul and spirit asunder, how to get soul and spirit divided. I am just beginning to understand a little about it, the division between the soul and the spirit. There are three parts of us, the spirit (that is meant to be in continuous touch with the Holy Spirit), and the soul, and then the body (which is the lower part of us). The soul is the battleground, the soul is the seat of our senses, of our personality, the seat of the old man, the seat of the self-life, and that is the battlefield of life. It is on the soul that Satan is continually sending his onslaughts, because if he can win the battle in the soul he puts the soul up upon the top and the spirit is brought down. Whenever the soul life is supreme, dominant, then the spirit and the body get out of order.
We hear a great deal today about the psychic, and that is the soulish, that is the place where the enemy today is at work deceiving people, and through this psychic sending forth deceptions and delusions by which men and women are being entrapped by him and being led to believe in what Paul calls the declarations of demons as if they were the truth of God. You will find that all these false cults today are developing the psychic. The whole emphasis is being put upon the soulish part of the being.
What does the Lord Jesus Christ say? You will find this is always the point of difference. The Lord Jesus Christ says these things have to go to the cross, and the cross is the only place of safety for the psychic. The devil says “Develop the psychic.” Christ says (Matthew 16:25), “To the cross with it,” “If any man will save his life he shall lose it. If any man will lose his life [that is, the psychic life], he shall find it again,” in its right way, and he shall find it in a way that will help him to use it to the best purpose. But if he develops the natural away from the spiritual he allows the soulish part of himself to become dominant in him and the spirit becomes weak, and the body gets out of order, and life becomes deceived and sidetracked.
Therefore God’s great purpose is to get us to see the place of the cross and the purpose of the cross in our lives, working through the Word of God to put the soul on that side and the spiritual up on the top; and when the spiritual is on the top, if touched by the Holy Spirit, disciplined by the Holy Spirit, governed and guided by the Holy Spirit, then the spirit keeps the soul in its place and the soul and the body work out the functions for which God has created them. The knife of the Word is here to lay bare in our lives all that needs to go to the cross; and when we obey the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, then we find God dealing with the heart of each of us in a way that makes the heart healthy. When you and I put away everything that the Word of God shows us is soulish and sinful, and when we put it to the cross, then the cross is doing its work and the spirit is becoming supreme.
I know something about it myself, but it is one of the most difficult things to explain to others, and it is only something that you are led into in experience if you will go instantly to the Holy Spirit about it and say, “Let me know the meaning of these things,” and if you are willing to pay the price.
Christ claims supremacy over the conscience (Acts 24:16), “And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.” You will find a difference. A conscience that is being controlled by the world or by the prince of the world is usually a quiescent conscience, an inactive conscience. A conscience that is controlled by Jesus Christ is a quickened conscience. There is the difference: Conscience requires right treatment. Conscience is often ignored, even by Christian people, treated as an insignificant quantity, and custom—the custom of the place where we live, the opinion of others, our own desires—takes the place of conscience. It was not so with Paul; he said, “I exercise my conscience, that I may have a conscience void of offence toward God and men,” and conscience demands honest dealing if it is to be kept healthy.
Some people are not honest with their conscience, and they are always transferring the blame from themselves to some others, instead of allowing conscience to bring them to the bar and say, “Thou art the man.”
I was preaching sometime ago in Scotland, when a young girl of seventeen came into the vestry of the church at the close of the service, and said to me, “I am going to say something that will surprise you.” I pricked up my ears, and this is what she said, “I decided for Christ when I was fourteen, but I have been very disappointed with Him. I never thought that He would leave me alone.”
“Well,” I said, “go on.” It was a surprising thing to hear. So she told me this story, that the night she decided for Christ she went home and she did not confess Christ. The Holy Spirit told her to confess Him again and again through the days and the weeks that followed. The Holy Spirit pressed her to confess Christ in her home, and one day she said, “I woke up to find myself in darkness and Christ had left me. I never thought He would forsake me.”
“My dear child,” I said, “the Lord Jesus Christ, as I know Him, is not a hard taskmaster, and you have only got to come back to Him in penitence and confession of sin and seek the cleansing of His blood, and I am perfectly sure He will forgive.”
“Oh, I have done that,” she exclaimed, “and it is no good.”
Then I saw something in her, and I said, “Now look here, you are not honest. You are not letting your conscience be honest. You have got a root of bitterness in your heart against the Lord Jesus Christ, haven’t you?” And she dropped her head. “You have been transferring to Him the blame that is on your own shoulders. On your own confession you disobeyed the Holy Spirit, and yet you are here trying to make out that it is Christ who has left you, and you know yourself what has happened. You will never get peace and you will never get joy or anything else until you come back to the Lord Jesus Christ and confess—not only the sin of not confessing Him, but the greater sin of misjudging Him. Then you must seek the cleansing and go back and confess Christ, and you will find the Holy Spirit where you left Him.” Do you know, a conscience is a very troublesome thing? Have you found it so? I hope you have, and if you have not I hope you will go back from this conference and find it so. It is troublesome if it is healthy, but it will never work rightly until you have made the Lord Jesus Christ supreme over it and said to yourself, “I will obey the Holy Spirit in matters of conscience, no matter what it costs me.”
Let me carry you to another point. Christ claims supremacy over the will, and here is a very important point, for it is perhaps the strategic position in our lives, here is the citadel in our lives, the will. He claims supremacy over the will. Remember this, that supremacy will be clearly and consistently contested by Satan. It is well to understand the difference between a will under the supremacy of Satan and a will under the supremacy of Christ. We have to remember this especially in these days, that the essential condition of Satan for supremacy over the will is what I have discussed as passivity.
I want to illustrate that by a contrast. It is a disease that is afflicting multitudes of Christian people today. Passivity means dropping the will; the supremacy of Christ always means linking the will with the Holy Spirit. Passivity means substituting the will of another for your own will; the supremacy of Christ means accepting God’s will as right and then putting your will in line with His to carry out His. Passivity always makes one an automaton, a machine; the supremacy of Christ teaches you how to use your intelligence, your commonsense. Passivity makes you accept all that happens as the will of God for you; the supremacy of Christ leads you to test everything that happens, by the cross, and to accept nothing that you are not sure is the will of God. Passivity opens the way to the inrush of evil spirits and to the deceptions and delusions of Satan, and he is giving people today counterfeit holiness, counterfeit piety, counterfeit powers; he can counterfeit every blessing of God that God has in His heart for His children today. He can counterfeit them and he is doing it. The supremacy of Christ always leads you into cooperation with the Holy Spirit to walk with Him by means of a living faith and an intelligent obedience, and that is the only way in which you can be kept safe in these days. This is the mark of a will under the supremacy of Christ, in perfect cooperation with the Holy Spirit to accomplish divine tasks, and the imperative call of the cross is for such as that, such a will as that today, because of the need of God in regard to the world, and the need of the world for God.
Oh, men and women, God can reach the world today only through yielded wills, and the world can only be convinced of the powers of God to satisfy it as it sees lives in which the power is at work. I fell sometime ago upon peculiar lines that I want to read to you, that have a great truth in them:
O, will my will to will Thy will, And then to will is well. The willing will which wills God’s will Within God’s will will dwell.
Christ asks the supremacy over our wills.
One word more. He claims the supremacy over the body. Will you note these texts: 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”;1 Corinthians 6:15; 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid”; Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
There are two descriptions of the body in the Word of God, the first is the temple of God, and the second is the body of sin. As a temple, it is to be yielded to the Holy Spirit to be indwelt by Him; as a body of sin it is to be put out of action by its members being mortified. How is it to be done? 2 Corinthians 13:4, “For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you,” and the power of God operates to make Christ supreme, and we live no longer unto ourselves but unto Him. That is to have Christ on the throne inspiring and regulating life in each department and detail.
There is only one head of the body, that is Christ, and just as body and will, conscience and heart and mind respond in loving, cheerful obedience to the head, does life become fruitful in service and radiant in experience, so that brings us to the point of consecration.
What is consecration? It is not giving up something to God, it is not even giving myself to God. I have nothing to give. Myself is not worth giving. If you will look in the Old Testament you will find that consecration means coming to God with empty hands, and He putting something into them that we can give to Him. Consecration means God coming in, possessing, filling, conscience, heart, will, mind, body—His temple, and then that temple, every whit of it, utters His glory.