Experimental Preaching. 9

Next Part Experimental Preaching. 10

There are two ways of learning of Divine things—true alike for the preacher and hearer—the one is to acquire a letter knowledge of them from the Bible, the other is to be given an actual experience of them in the soul under the Spirit's teaching. So many today suppose that by spending a few minutes on a good concordance they can discover what humility is, that by studying certain passages of Scriptures they may obtain an increase offaith, or that by reading and re-reading a certain chapter they may secure more love. But that is not the way those graces are experimentally developed. Humility is learned by a daily smarting under the plague of the heart, and having its innumerable abominations exposed to our view.Repentance is learned by feeling the load of guilt and the heavy burden of conscious defilement bowing down the soul. Faith is learned by increasing discoveries of unbelief and infidelity. Love is learned by a personal sense of the undeserved goodness of God to the vilest of the vile. It is thus with all the spiritual graces of the Christian. Patience cannot be learned from books—it is acquired in the furnace of affliction! "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope" (Romans 5:3, 4).

Ah, my reader, we beg the Lord to teach us—but the fact is that we do not like His method of teaching us. Fiery trials, storms of afflictions, the dashing of our carnal hopes, are indeed painful to flesh and blood; yet it is by them that the heart is purified.

We say that we wish to live to God's glory—but fail to remember that we can do so only as SELF is denied and the Cross be taken up. The crossing of our wills and the thwarting of our plans stirs up the enmity of the carnal mind—yet that makes way for our taking a lower place before God. God's ways of teaching His children are, like all His ways, entirely different from ours.

I asked the Lord that I might grow,
In faith and love and every grace,
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.

It was He who taught me thus to pray,
And He I trust has answered prayer.
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair!

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He'd answer my request.
And by His love's constraining power,
Subdue my sins and give me rest!

Instead of this, He made me feel,
The hidden evils of my heart.
And let the angry powers of hell,
Assault my soul in every part!

Yes, more with His own hand, He seemed,
Intent to aggravate my woe.
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low!

"Lord, why is this?" I trembling cried.
Will You pursue Your worm to death?"
"This is the way" the Lord replied,
"I answer prayer for grace and strength."

"These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set you free;
And break your schemes of earthly joy,
That you may find your all in Me!"
--John Newton

These lines may not suit the sentiments of a few of our readers—but we are sure they accurately express the actual experience of many of God's people.

The more we really grow in grace—the more tender becomes the conscience, the more conscious we are of our corruptions, and the more distressing is the hiding of the Lord's countenance. The brighter the sun's shining into a room, the more apparent becomes any dust or cobwebs in it; and the greater the illumination granted by the Holy Spirit, the more will the filth of our hearts be manifested.

So too when the Word of God is accompanied with life and power to the soul, it pierces "even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit" (Heb. 4:12). That is, there is a separating between the wheat and the chaff, a dividing between what God has wrought and that which is merely natural religion. But an honest soul loves a searching ministry, even though it cuts him to the quick! He does not want to be soothed in his sins—and he dreads a false peace. His earnest prayer is "Search me, O God, and know my heart—try me, and know my anxious thoughts" (Psalm 139:23).

The more God searches us—the more will He bring to light the "hidden things of darkness," and the more will we be made to loathe ourselves. As the conscience becomes more tender it increasingly feels the enormity of sin, and correspondingly grieves over the same. Then it is, that "the heart knows its own bitterness" (Proverbs 14:10), and like Hannah—we become "of a sorrowful spirit" (1 Sam 1:15). And then it is, very often, that the Job's comforters of our day add to the grief of the groaning saint. They unseasonably prate to him of "the joy of the Lord," and tell him he should commend Christianity by a glowing countenance and a cheerful demeanor. Well may we remind such meddlers into matters they understand not—of those words, "Singing cheerful songs to a person whose heart is heavy is as bad as stealing someone's jacket in cold weather or rubbing salt in a wound" (Proverbs 25:20). My reader, God does not require us to play the part of hypocrites before others, nor to mock Him by singing when our hearts are full of heaviness.

Next Part Experimental Preaching. 10

Back to Arthur Pink