"HIMSELF"
By: Rev. A.B. Simpson
"There is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." 1 Timothy 2:5,6
"I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20
I wish to speak to you about Jesus, and Jesus only. I often hear people say,
'I wish I could get hold of Divine Healing, but I cannot.' Sometimes they say,
'I have got it.' If I ask them, 'What have you got?' the answer is sometimes, 'I
have got the blessing', sometimes it is, 'I have got the theory'; sometimes it
is , 'I have got the sanctification.' But, I thank God we have been taught that
it is not the blessing, it is not the healing, it is not the sanctification, it
is not the thing, it is not the it that you want, but it is something better. It
is 'the Christ'; it is Himself. How often that comes out in His Word: 'Himself
took our infirmities and bare our sickness'; Himself 'bare our sins in His own
body on the tree'! It is the person of Jesus Christ we want. Plenty of people
get the idea and do not get anything out of it. They get it into into their
head, and it into their conscience, and it into their will; but somehow they do
not get Him into their life and spirit, because they have only that which is the
outward expression and symbol of the spiritual reality.
I once saw a picture of the Constitution of the United States, very skilfully
engraved in copper plate, so that when you looked at it closely it was nothing
more than a piece of writing, but when you looked at it at a distance, it was
the face of George Washington. The face shone out in the shading of the letters
at a little distance, and I saw the person, not the words, nor the ideas; and I
thought, 'That is the way to look at the Scriptures and understand the thoughts
of God; to see in them the face of love, shining through and through; not ideas,
nor doctrines, but Jesus Himself as the Life and Source and sustaining Presence
of all our life'.
I prayed a long time
to get sanctified, and sometimes I thought I had it. On one occasion I felt
something, and I held on with a desperate grip for fear I should lose it, and
kept awake the whole night fearing it would go, and, of course, it went with the
next sensation and the next mood. Of course, I lost it because I didn't hold on
to Him. I had been taking a little water from the reservoir, when I might have
all the time received from Him fullness through the open channels. I went to
meetings and heard people speak of joy. I even thought I had the joy, but I did
not keep it because I had not Himself as my joy. At last He said to me--Oh so
tenderly --'My child, just take Me, and let Me be in you the constant supply of
all this, Myself.' And when at last I got my eyes off my sanctification, and my
experience of it, and just place them on the Christ in me, I found, instead of
an experience, the Christ larger than the moment's need, the Christ that had all
that I should ever need Who was given to me at once, and for ever! And when I
thus saw Him, it was such rest; it was all right, and right for ever. For I had
not only what I could hold that little hour, but also in Him, all that I should
need the next and the next and so on, until sometimes I get a glimpse of what it
will be a million years afterwards, when we shall 'shine forth as the sun in the
kingdom of our Father' (Matthew 13:43) and have 'all the fullness of God.'
And so I thought the healing would be an it too, that the Lord would take me
like the old run-down clock, wind me up, and set going like a machine. It is not
thus at all. I found it was Himself coming in instead and giving me what I
needed at the moment. I wanted to have a great stock, so that I could feel rich;
a great store laid up for many years, so that I would not be dependent upon Him
the next day; but He never gave me such a store. I never had more holiness or
healing at one time than I needed for that hour. He said: 'My child, you must
come to Me for the next breath, because I love you so dearly I want you to come
all the time. If I gave you a great supply, you would do without Me, and would
not come to Me so often; now you have to come to Me every second, and lie on My
breast every moment.' He gave me a great fortune, placed thousands and millions
at credit, but He gave a check book with this one condition, 'You never can draw
more than you need at the time.' Every time a check was wanted, however, there
was the name of Jesus upon it, and so it brought more glory to Him, kept His
name before the heavenly world and God was glorified in His Son.
I had to learn to take
from Him my spiritual life every second; to breathe Himself in as I breathed,
and breathe myself out. So, moment by moment for the spirit and moment by moment
for the body we must receive. You say, 'Is not that a terrible bondage, to be
always on the strain?' What, on the strain with one you love, your dearest
Friend? Oh no! It comes so naturally, so spontaneously, so like a fountain,
without consciousness, without effort, for true life is always easy, and
overflowing.
And now, thank God, I have Him; not only what I have room for, but that which
I have not room for, but for which I shall have room, moment by moment, as I go
on into the eternity before me. I am like the little bottle in the sea, as full
as it will hold. The bottle is in the sea, and the sea is in the bottle; so I am
in Christ, and Christ is in me. But, besides that bottleful in the sea, there is
a whole ocean beyond; the difference is, that the bottle has to be filled over
again, every day, evermore.
Now, the question for
each of us is not 'What think you of Bethshan, and what think you of divine
healing?' but 'What think you of Christ?' There came a time when there was a
little thing between me and Christ. I express it by a little conversation with a
friend who said, 'You were healed by faith.' 'Oh no, I said, 'I was healed by
Christ.' What is the difference? There is a great difference. There came a time
when even faith seemed to come between me and Jesus. I thought I should have to
work up the faith, so I labored to get the faith. At last I thought I had it;
that if I put my whole weight upon it, it would hold. I said, when I thought I
had got the faith, 'Heal me.' I was trusting in myself, in my own heart, in my
own faith. I was asking the Lord to do something for me because of something in
me, not because of something in Him. So the Lord allowed the devil to try my
faith, and the devil devoured it like a roaring lion, and I found myself so
broken down that I did not think I had any faith. God allowed it to be taken
away until I felt I had none. And then God seemed to speak to me so sweetly,
saying, 'Never mind, my child, you have nothing. But I am perfect Power, I am
perfect Love, I am Faith, I am your Life, I am the Preparation for the Blessing,
and then I am the Blessing too. I am all within and all without, and all for
ever'. It is just having the 'The Faith of God' (Mark 11:22). 'And the life I
now live in the flesh, I live,' not by the faith on the Son of God, but 'by the
faith of the Son of God' (Galatians 2:20). That is it. It is not your faith. You
have no faith in you, any more than you have life or anything else in you. You
have nothing but emptiness and vaccuum, and you must be just openness and
readiness to take Him to do all. You have to take His faith as well as His life
and healing, and have simply to say, 'I live by the faith of the Son of God.' My
faith is not worth anything.
If I had to pray for anyone, I would not depend
upon my faith at all. I would say, 'Here, Lord, am I. If you want me to be the
channel of blessing to this one, just breathe into me all that I need.' It is
simply Christ, Christ alone.
Now, is your body yielded to Christ for Him thus to dwell and work in you?
The Lord Jesus Christ has a body as well as you, only it is perfect; it is the
body, not of a man, but of the Son of man. Have you considered why He is called
the Son of man? The Son of man means that Jesus Christ is the one typical,
comprehensive, universal, all-inclusive Man. Jesus is the one man that contains
in Himself all that man ought to be, all that man needs to have. It is all in
Christ. All the fullness of the Godhead and the fulness of a perfect manhood is
embodied in Christ, and He stands now as the summing-up of all that man needs.
His Spirit is all that your spirit needs, and He just gives us Himself. His body
posesses all that your body needs. He has a heart beating with the strength that
your heart needs. He has organs and functions redundant with life, not for
Himself, but for humanity. He does not need strength for Himself. The energy
which enabled Him to rise and ascend from the tomb, above all the forces of
nature, was not for Himself. That marvellous body belongs to your body. You are
a member of His body. Your heart has a right to draw from His heart all that it
needs. Your physical life has a right to draw from His physical life its support
and strength, and so it is not you, but it is just the precious life of the Son
of God. Will you take Him thus today, and then you will not be merely healed,
but your will have a new life for all you need, a flood of life that will sweep
disease away, and then remain a fountain of life for all your future need. Oh,
take Him in His fullness!
It seems to me as if I
might just bring you a little talisman (object of supernatural power) today, as
if God had given me a little secret for every one here and said to me, 'Go and
tell them; if they will take it, it will be a talisman of power wherever they
go, and it will carry them through difficulty, danger, fear, life, death,
eternity.' If I could stand on this platform and say, 'I have received from
heaven a secret of wealth and success which God will give freely, through my
hand, to everybody who will take it,' I am sure you would need a larger hall for
the people who would come. But, dear friends, I show you in His Word a truth
which is more precious. The Apostle Paul tells us that there is a secret, a
great secret which was hidden from ages and from generations (Colossians 1:26),
which the world was seeking after in vain, which wise men from the East hoped
they might find, and God says it 'is now made manifest to His saints' and Paul
went through the world just to tell it to those that were able to receive it;
and that simple secret is just this, 'Christ in you the hope of glory'.
The word mystery means secret; this is the great secret. And I tell you
today, nay, I can give you, if you will take it from Him, not from me--I can
give you a secret which has been to me, oh, so wonderful! Years ago I came to
Him burdened with guilt and fear; I tried that simple secret, and it took away
all my fear and sin. Years passed on, and I found sin overcoming me and my
temptations too strong for me. I came to Him a second time, and He whispered to
me, 'Christ in you' and I had victory, rest and blessing.
Then the body broke
away in every sort of way.
I have always worked hard, and from the age of
fourteen I studied and labored and spared no strength. I took charge of a large
congregtion at the age of twenty-one; I broke down utterly half a dozen times
and at my last constitution was worn out. Many times I feared I should drop dead
in my pulpit. I could not ascend any height without a sense of suffocation,
because of a broken down heart and exhausted nervous system. I heard of the
Lord's healing, but I struggled against it. I was afraid of it. I had been
taught in theological seminaries that the age of the supernatural was past, and
I could not go back from my early training. My head was in my way; but at last
when I was brought to attend 'the funeral of my dogmatics' as Mr. Schrenck says,
'the Lord whispered to me the little secret, 'Christ in you'; and from that hour
I received Him for my body as I had done for my soul. I was made so strong and
well that work has been a perfect delight. For years I have spent my summer
holiday in the hot city of New York, preaching and working amongst the masses,
as I never did before; besides the work of our Home and College and an immense
mass of library work and much besides. But the Lord did not merely remove my
sufferings. It was more that simple healing. He so gave me Himself that I lost
the painful consciousness of physical organs. That is the best of the health He
gives. I thank the Lord that He keeps me from all morbid, physical consciousness
and a body that is the object of anxious care, and gives a simple life that is a
delight and a service for the Master, that is a rest and joy.
Then, again, I had a poor sort of mind, heavy and cumbrous, that did not
think or work quickly. I wanted to write and speak for Christ and to have a
ready memory, so as to have the little knowledge I had gained always under
command. I went to Christ about it, and asked if He had anything for me in this
way. He replied, 'Yes My child, I am made unto you Wisdom.' I was always making
mistakes, which I regretted, and then thinking I would not make tham again; but
when He said that He would be my wisdom, that we may have the mind of Christ,
that He could cast down imaginations and bring into captivity every thought to
the obedience of Christ, that He could make the brain and head right, then I
took Him for all that. And, since then I have been kept free from this mental
disability, and work has been rest. I used to write two sermons a week, and it
took me three days to complete one. But now, in connection with my with my
literary work, I have numberless pages of matter to write constantly besides the
conduct of very many meetings a week, and all is delightfully easy to me. The
Lord has helped me mentally, and I know He is the Saviour of our mind as well as
our spirit.
Well, then, I had an irresolute will. I asked, 'Cannot you be a will to me?'
He said, 'Yes My child, it is God Who worketh in you to will and to do.' Then He
made me to learn how and when to be firm, and how and when to yield. Many people
have a decided will, but they do not know how to hold on just at the proper
moment. So, too, I came to Him for power for his work and all the resources for
His service, and He has not failed me.
And so I would say, if this precious little secret of 'Christ in you' will
help you, you may have it. May you make better use of it that I! I feel I have
only begun to learn how well it works. Take it and go on working it out, grace
for grace, from strength to strength, from glory to glory, from this time forth
and even for evermore
