CHAPTER XVI Every human soul has been so organized as to possess some one dominant trait, or some combination of traits, or some quality in a certain degree which is not duplicated in exactly the same proportion perhaps as in any other soul in creation. God is forever manifesting his exhaustless wisdom and power in producing creatures through all the ages which are unique and different in some respects from all the other myriads, that each soul may be a chosen vessel to show forth his gifts and glory and beauty and wisdom in a peculiar and individual manifestation. In our present condition, with our nature fallen in the ignorant and often, even in the highest state of grace, so hedged about with ignorance and short-sightedness and infirmities, we cannot begin to see the existing beauty and holy dignity and glory that God designs for each one of his loving and obedient children. There are seven colors in the Rambo. Each of these colors can have ten thousand different shades and each of these shades can be blended with the other colors and shades of color and untold millions of colors and shades of color. So out of the element of spirit, soul, and body which enters into the formation of man, and from the five senses of the soul, add the intellectual faculties and the grace of the spirit operating in the heart, the Holy Spirit can combine these mental and spiritual qualities in an infinite number of forms and degrees, so that each saint shall possess some signal mark of divine favor, or some exhibition of divine beauty, or some form of love which will distinguish him from all other creatures in the universe. This will make each one of the countless millions of heaven to have a special sacredness to God and a special attraction for us. This truth is set forth in the different gems and precious stones which compose the twelve foundations of the city of God as described in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. We shall find that each of these twelve precious stones mentioned in that chapter have a special virtue and quality of chemistry and beauty of its own, and when we learn the deep interior individuality of the twelve apostles, we shall find that each of these apostles had a unique quality, some dominant trait of moral character which corresponds precisely with the quality of the various precious stones in the twelve foundations. It is interesting and helpful to us to recognize this dominant soul quality in the Lord's people. Each person we meet makes a special impression upon our minds and sensibilities which no one else makes. The more thorough the person is saved and filled with the spirit and united with the divine mind, the more perfectly will their deep inner personality be brought out and manifested by the Holy Spirit. Some of God's children impress us with love, others with illumination, others with great force, others with faith, others with conviction, others with sweetness of spirit, others with humility and resignation, others with authority and a regnant power, others with quietness and retirement. Could our eyes be sufficiently open to see the things in the full light of the Holy Spirit and our keen spiritual sensibilities be perfectly open to the play of spirit waves or the detection of spiritual odors? Should we find an unspeakable joy in the variety and fellowship of all God saints? This will be one of the joys of heaven. The soul is larger than the body and the spirit is larger than the soul. There is a spiritual atmosphere which surrounds us as the air surrounds the world and we can feel the touch of this soul atmosphere. This dominant quality of an immortal mind not only comes out in social contact but even in books the writer will put the dominant quality of his mind. In reading the writings of Wesley I am always impressed with his willpower. Whatever I may read from his pen in his journal or sermons I am always impressed with that firm, tireless, overmastering, persevering, conquering willpower which was in the man. This has always been the effect of his writing upon me so much so that it tires me to read very much of his writings at a time. I believe Wesley had the strongest and purest will of any man in a thousand years. When I read John Fletcher I am impressed with an intense burning eagerness for God and of a consuming desire for the fullness of God and tireless and cessent spirit of prayer for the heavenly filling. This is the dominant quality of his writings upon me. When I read Madame Guyonne I feel the quality of utter self-abagnation, self- renunciation and deep, fathomless abandonment to God. This quality pervades her poetry, her biography, her writings, in her domestic life, in prison, at all times, the reigning trite of her soul seems to be annihilation of self. In reading Fenelin I am impressed with great gentleness and sweetness of spirit and a flexible, yielding, tender, compassionate thoughtfulness and heavenly sweetness. It seems to pervade, like a divine odor, everything he touches. In reading Faber I am aware of a great illumination and wonderful discernment unto God and the human spirit and clearness, the white heat of devotion, the very poetry of light, the purity and gentle melody of sunbeams and stars and crystal fountains, such insights into God, such glowing visions of the trinity, such cloudless perception of things in heaven. But it is the light of a hot sun, flaming with devotion and not the light of a winter moon. The writings of George Muller predominantly impressed me with patient prayer. He is known as a man of great faith, and yet the all-pervading quality in his writing to me is that of patient prayer, the attitude of waiting on God and finding out his will before one step is taken. This is a very high type of faith, for there are thousands of different aspects and degrees of faith. Dr. Cullis, with whom I had the pleasure of personal acquaintance, preeminently impressed me with a childlike, simple trust. I found it always easy to believe God in his presence. He seemed to carry an atmosphere of trust along with him. There was in Dr. Cullis a gentleness, sweet childlike playfulness, an infantlike trust which seemed to have nothing arduous in it. Dr. Sheridan Baker had to me the dominant quality of well-poised accuracy and precision.  Being redundant or extravagant or narrow or little or outlandish or absurd, everything in the man seemed as beautifully poised as a blue dome of heaven. Look at the way he managed his business, dispersed his money. Look at his writings. Can you find one foolish, extravagant or superfluous word? He was, in a very eminent degree, a man of wisdom and heavenly accuracy. Inskip impressed me all the time as a warrior and leader, a man of unbounded magnetism, a bonapart in the Holy Ghost. He could sway thousands of people as easily as a lion sways a cat. He could arouse a vast audience into a foaming sea of enthusiasm with waves of white-capped excitement breaking on the shore, and in a few moments could quell them to a placid lake whose tiny ripples of low-breathed prayer were hardly audible on the beach. I have met humble and saintly women who spoke only a few words, but there was a quality of hit-away quietness in God which came out of them, and impressed me for days and months like the sweet minor strains of some delicate instrument in a great orchestra. Every flower has its own perfume, every gem its own luster, every bird its own note, every eye its own peculiar luster, every heart its own regnant quality, and if we will give ourselves up utterly to the possession of the Holy Spirit and seek constantly to be filled more and more with the Christ life, God will make each one of us a chosen vessel of some precious gift or spiritual quality for the manifesting of his will to others. It is useless for anyone to try to exert a good influence. All such effort is miserable machinery. It is our place to walk with God, live a continual prayer, be flooded with the gentle spirit, seek to please God, and he will see to it that a subtle fire shall always proceed from us, which will burn itself indelibly into other souls in such a manner as to glorify God. CHAPTER XVII alone with God Over and over, deeper and deeper, do we have to learn the meaning of God's words, until the faint perceptions we first had of them seem as dew drops compared with the fathomless ocean we find in them at last. And he was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him till the break of day. All elect souls pass many times this station of aloneness with God, and they find that the wrestling always lasts till the breaking of day. We have to be alone with God in finding personal salvation. Others may be used as instruments in bringing conviction, light, help in various ways, but there comes a crisis both in the work of regeneration and as sanctification in which the soul must be detached from others and deal only with God. How utterly impertinent are human words in such a crisis. We must meet our Jesus singly. We must apprehend him for our self. He must speak to us with his own voice. In such an hour we gaze when the salvation promises such as, Thy sins will be forgiven thee, or, I will, be thou clean. But the words on paper need to be imparted into our consciousness, and to affect this they must be re-spoken into us by the Holy Ghost. No true soul will be satisfied with an inference of salvation, or a dead legal imputation of holiness, or the opinions of others as to our state. Nothing less than God alone pouring his assurance into our spirits will answer. The dear Redeemer who loved us from eternity and formed us for himself will not leave the pining soul to the second-handed tinkering of others. He will closet us with himself and re-speak into us those living words out of his book that have been spoken to seeking souls in every generation of the world. God longs to give each of us a perfect personal assurance of his perfect salvation. We must be alone with God in the matter of suffering. The one who loves us best fits the furnace to our frame, and never once duplicates the pattern for any other soul. There are innumerable degrees of suffering among God's chosen ones, yet in each case it is unique and personal. The ingredients of suffering are of infinite variety in kind and mixture, but the end to be accomplished is the same. God will not allow us to pick our crosses or exchange them with our neighbor. Oftentimes our chief cross is born with us into the world, and stays with us through all vicissitudes of life, and all the operations of grace, till we have washed at thousands of times with our tears, till at last conquered and mellowed and sweetened into utter tenderness of spirit, we smile upon the rough old instrument, and praise God for all its painfulness to us. Some forms of suffering have the community feature in them, and can be shared by others. But our very choicest sufferings, those that accomplish God's individual purpose in us, those that most thoroughly test us and unite us to His will, these are private property, into which no other ever enters, but are sympathizing Jesus. I will lead the blind in a way they have not known. The Lord selects for each of us those crucifixions which will most perfectly mortify us, and reduce us to our lone nothingness. In the earlier stages of deep interior suffering we foolishly fly to some chosen creatures for sympathy and help. But in taking our soul sorrows to earthly friend we are apt to find one of three results. Either God permits them to be cold and uninterested in us, or we find them loaded with woes of their own, or else they do us more harm than good by superficial or fanatical or unheavenly words. Our suffering should lead to four things. To detach us from creature comforts by driving us to bury our souls deep in the bosom of God. Next to take Jesus in as a partner of our pains, that in all our afflictions he was afflicted. Next recognize the presence of God in every step of our trials, and fourthly that we be so thoroughly softened by our sufferings as to have an unlimited tenderness for all other sufferers of every kind. The very best and most fruitful of our mortifications are those in which God locks us in alone with himself, and thereby saturates us with the Holy Spirit. In matters of divine guidance, and spiritual understanding, God often hems us in alone with himself, and deals with us and reveals his will to us in ways and things that our friends can have no comprehension of. When we are not in communion with God, he will lead us by secondary agents, but the closer we enter into union with him, the more directly and exclusively he guides by his Spirit. If we walk in constant fellowship with the Spirit, we will have illuminations into providence, and duty for ourselves personally, which our best friends may not always see. He knoweth the way that I take, and when I am tired I shall come forth his gold. God always has some child passing through the experience of these words. How little other people understand of the real inner life we are living. Those who think they know us so well, and can give us volumes of advice, often know us very little. The best of saints misunderstand our faults, just as the ungodly misunderstand our graces. God will find a thousand ways to detach us from creatures, and to wed us to himself alone, for he is determined that no one else shall be our God. No human being on earth, even the best of saints, can be any real benefit to me in love, or comfort, or counsel, except as they are the channels of God to me. Whether they give me out of their own human nature will soon prove poison to my real well-being. There is not one atom of balm in the universe except from Jesus. When God truly leads along any given path, the outcome will evidence it to be of him. However queer or wrong it may seem to many who are wise and prudent. As Faber sings, ill that he blesses is most good, and unblessed good is ill, and all is right that seems most wrong if it be his sweet will. In the fifth chapter of Luke, from the first to the seventh verses, we have an account of Jesus teaching on Lake Geneserat, and afterwards of the disciples launching out and letting down their nets for a drought to fishes, which is full of suggestive thoughts. One. Before they launched out, they were to hear the word of God, verse one. This is the first preliminary to all of life or service. The first thing we need to hear is God's word. Before we can repent, or believe, or move out on life's duty, we need to receive in our innermost being the living word of God. As the earth is dead until shined upon by the sun, so there is no capability of life or service in us until we hear the living word. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word. It is the living word touching our faculties, piercing our conscience, melting our hearts, moving our will, vitalizing our motives, which prepares us for obedience. In proportion is God's word enters into us, and that proportion are we qualified for our mission. Two. Launch. When he had left speaking, he said to Peter, launch out. So it is when we have heard his word spoken into us by the living spirit, we are then prepared for the command to launch out. This word implies the act of the will, which has been vitalized by the hearing of the living word. Previous to hearing the word, the will is sluggish and rebellious. It has no motive or energy along lines of righteousness. But the imparted word opens up motives, imparts strength, and arouses in the will of the principle of choice and determination, which constitutes the taproot of moral character. There must be a fixed choice against all evil, or for all good. It is this fixed choice of the will which makes the central element of character. God watches the determination of the heart. This word, launch, implies throwing ourselves in utter dependence on the Lord, a cooperation with the spirit, a giving up of our will to his guidance. In seeking pardon or sanctification or healing or entering some special service, in various ways there come times in our lives where, after hearing the truth, we are to boldly, with all our willpower, launch out. Three. From the shore. To launch out implies launching from the shore. Going from the shore was to leave the multitude, the sights and sounds of terra firma, to leave home, and friends, and all that was on the land. How much this implies to us who hear all the living word and launch from the shore. It implies launching out from nature, with its laws, sciences, philosophies, from its materialism. It implies launching from the natural mind, with its carnal reasoning, opinions, taste, its prudence and whims, and fashions. It implies launching from all our past, past failures and successes, all our past sins, and all our past righteousness as well. The cutting of the shoreline that ties us to anything behind, the letting of all things go, that, like a receding shore to the sailor, it may fade from our vision. Four. Into the deep. How deep, he does not say. The depth into which we launch will depend upon how perfectly we have given up the shore and the greatness of our need, and the apprehension of our possibilities. The fish were to be found in the deep, not in the shallow waters. So with us, our needs are to be met in the deep things of God. We are to launch into the deep of God's word, which the spirit can open up to us in such crystal, fathomless meaning that the same words we have accepted in times past will have an ocean meaning to them, which renders their first meaning to us very shallow. Into the deep of atonement, until Christ's precious blood is so illuminated by the spirit that it becomes an omnipotent balm, and food and deep medicine for the soul and body. Into the deep of the Father's will, until we apprehend it in its infinite minuteness and goodness, and its far-sweeping provision and care for us. Into the deep of the Holy Spirit, until he becomes a bright, dazzling, sweet, fathomless summer sea, in which we bathe and bask and breathe, and lose ourselves and our sorrows in the calmness and peace of his everlasting presence. Into the deep of God's providences, where we find the most marvelous answers to prayer, the most tender and careful guidance, the most thoughtful anticipation of our needs, the most accurate and supernatural shaping of events. Into the deep of God's purposes in coming kingdom, until the Lord's coming and his millennial reign are opened up to us, and beyond these the bright and transient ages on ages unfold themselves, until the mental eye is dazed with light, and the heart flutters with inexpressible anticipations of its joy with Jesus and the glory to be revealed. Into all these things Jesus bids us launch. He made us, and He made the deep, and to its fathomless depths He has fitted our longings and capabilities. 5. Down Your Nets Their nets were the instruments for making their living. To us it signifies letting down our gifts, talents, occupations, into the will of God. Whatever we can utilize of money or business or voice or pen, or thoughts or labor, or personal magnetism, yielding it utterly to the sway of the Spirit, sinking it all in the sea of His will beyond our vision, trusting all results with Him. 6. All Night and Nothing At that same place they had toiled all night and taken nothing. What failures they had experienced, how weary and discouraged they were, but God loves to take the most forlorn failures and turn them into successes. God loves to work in such a way as to outwit all the whys. By His gentle omnipotence He takes disappointment, failure, trouble, desolation, and all sorts of losses, and out of them coins the goal to victory and success. 5. Faber Sings God's glory is a wondrous thing, most strange in all its ways, and of all things on earth least like, what men agree to praise. For He can endless glory weave from what men reckless shame. In His own world He is content to play a losing game. 7. At Thy Word The pivot on which Peter's faith swung was the word nevertheless.  This was simple faith embodied in obedience. Obedience is the body in which the soul of faith lives and moves. We are to believe and obey at His word, notwithstanding the awful failures of the past. Not on the spot of past defeat, over the same waters, with the same net, in the same boat, without any visible signs of success we are to drop ourselves into His will. Simply obey and leave it with Him, whether we take any fish or not. The more perfectly we see our failure, the more perfectly we can enter into the meaning of this nevertheless at the word. 8. Their Net Break The lame have taken the prey. The draw to fishes was more than they had asked or thought. It was larger than the measure of their nets, or the size of their boat, or the thinking of their minds. The same Jesus stands on our sea of life, waiting for us to yield in utter obedience, and willing to do in us, and for us exceeding abundantly above our asking or thinking, or in lines of experience and usefulness. CHAPTER XIX One of the most whimsical and foolish delusions which Satan in recent years has palmed off on some shallow-thinking Christians is the heresy that the souls of the wicked are to be annihilated. This error was never known among the ancient heathens, who believed, even before they had a revealed religion, that the souls of the good and the bad both exist forever. There is no darkness like that which comes from rejected light. The rejection of the plain teachings of God's word has brought greater infidels than the heathen ever knew, and more heresies than the ancients ever dreamed of. This notion of the annihilation of the wicked is propagated by putting a false meaning upon the Bible words, destruction, and punishment. The word destroy does not mean to annihilate, but to wreck, ruin, render utterly useless for the purpose for which it was made. The words everlasting destruction, everlasting punishment, are perverted into meaning annihilation. If the wicked are to be annihilated and their punishment will not be everlasting, then their destruction will not be everlasting. The everlastingness of punishment is put opposite the everlastingness of reward, and if it does not mean everlasting in the one case, neither does it mean that in the other. Again the word death is perverted into meaning annihilation, but the term death is the opposite of life and not the opposite of existence. Life and death are opposites. Existence and non-existence are opposites, and it is a false reason to take the opposite of life and make it mean the opposite of something else. We know in the realm of nature and of mind that death is not annihilation.  It was once a living tree full of life, and the life has now left it, but it still exists. A human body still exists, with all its members and organs, though the life has left it. Yet not one particle is annihilated. And in the realm of mind Satan and evil spirits are dead in sin. They are separated from the true life of God which is love, and yet they exist. And just as truly and as rationally as demons have an existence, who are separated from the life of God, so the souls of the wicked will exist forever, though dead in sin. This is implied in the words of Jesus, when he shall say, Depart from me ye cursed into hell, prepared for the devil and his angels. These very words imply that the wicked exist co-extensively with Satan and bad angels. Again, there is not a single hint in the whole realm of matter of all kinds that anything will ever be annihilated. The Holy Spirit says, in Ecclesiastes 3.14, I know that whatsoever God doeth it shall be for ever, nothing can be put to it nor anything taken from it, and God doeth it that men should fear before him. This statement covers the whole extent of creation. There is no sign that any atom of matter has ever been annihilated. Created substances can undergo a thousand changes, solids become liquids, liquid solids, gases turn into rocks and rocks into vapor, and there is no trace in the history of the world of anything like annihilation. And so in the human mind we may forget millions of things, but under certain mental conditions every event in our past lives can be recalled to the recollection. This delusion of annihilation bears upon its very face the handiwork of the devil. It is just the doctrine that will suit the wicked, give them license to live as they please in this life with the hope of plunging into nonexistence when they leave this world. No Christian can entertain an error like this without weakening the spiritual life, for all error is poisoned to the soul. Yet there are many people who fancy they can walk in communion with the Holy Ghost, and yet drink down this heresy that is afloat in the world. Some professed Christians fancy that they are more merciful than the Lord, and they think it will help out the doctrine of divine mercy to accept of such errors. But we must be careful how we accept of the doctrine of mercy from the devil, for it is his aim to turn every truth of the word of God into a lie. End of chapter 19 CHAPTER 20 OF SOUL FOOD Soul food by George Douglas Watson Concerning Soul Sleeping We are living in the times when the winds of heresy are blowing in every direction. One of these foolish heresies is that the soul of man sleeps in utter unconsciousness from the time of death until the resurrection. In all those scriptures where death is called sleep, the plain reference is to the body. The only sleep that the scriptures ascribe to the soul is to be asleep in sin. Sin acts upon the soul as opium on the body, rendering it unconscious of the things of eternity. Hence the word says, Awake thou that sleepest. We find in the scripture the following facts to disprove the sleep of the soul in a disembodied state. 1. That the soul has a natural constitution of immortality. We are told by Paul in the fifteenth of First Corinthians that Adam was made a living soul, but that Christ was made a quickening spirit. The word living soul signifies an immortal soul, but Adam had no power to communicate spiritual life after his fall. On the other hand, Christ not only had an immortal soul, but power to regenerate other souls and quicken them with the life of God. This is the difference between the First and Second Adam. We are told in Ecclesiastes third chapter that the spirit of a man goeth upward, but that the spirit of a beast goeth downward, proving that at death the soul of man in its mode of existence is opposite to the soul of a beast. We read in Zechariah twelfth chapter that the Lord formeth the spirit of man within him. And the apostle speaks of an inner man. All such scripture plainly teaches that the soul has a formation and constitution independent of the physical life. Two. We read in several places that after persons had died they were raised from the dead by their souls coming back into their bodies, showing that it was immortal. In First Kings seventeenth chapter we read the account of Elijah's raising the widow's son from the dead. It says, quote, and the Lord heard the voice of Elijah and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived, end quote. A similar passage is found in the eighth chapter of Luke, where Jesus raised from the dead the daughter of Jairus. When he said, made arise, her spirit came again, and she arose straight away. These scriptures prove that the soul is a conscious immortal personality, that it can exist in the body and out of the body and returns again into the body. Three. The scriptures speak of the soul going down to hell after the body is dead. In the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah we have an account of the death of the tyrannical king of Babylon and his descent into hell.  We are also told in verse sixteen that they looked narrowly upon him and considered him, exclaiming, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble that did shake kingdoms?  See verse eleven. In the tenth chapter of Matthew Jesus warns us not to fear them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell, in which Jesus shows clearly that the soul can exist apart from the body, that it cannot be killed as the body can and that it can be in hell apart from the body. The Lord also tells us of an actual occurrence in the sixteenth of Luke of a certain rich man that died, and in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torment.  This is the condition of millions today.  That the soul is alive and conscious when separated from the body is clearly shown from a great many scriptures. We see in Ecclesiastes twelfth chapter that at death the dust of man's body returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns unto God who gave it. Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul. Jesus told the penitent thief on the cross that before that day ended he would be with him in paradise. See Luke twenty-three verse forty-three. The real man to whom Christ was talking was not the fleshly body which was soon buried, but the immortal spirit in the body. He says, Thou shalt be with me in paradise, showing that the real man would be conscious and happy in a world of bliss away from all the sufferings of the body. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians fifth chapter that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord, but that we who have the earnest of the spirit are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. He also tells us in the same epistle, twelfth chapter, that at the time he was stoned at Lystra and left for dead he was caught up into paradise and that whether he was in the body or out of the body he could not tell and that while in that state he heard unspeakable words, proving conclusively that the real thinking knowing soul can exist apart from the body with all its faculties and powers intact. Peter tells us in his epistle, third chapter, that after Christ was crucified he went unto the spirits in prison who had died in the flood and proclaimed unto them his victory, showing that the souls of those drowned in the flood were alive and had been confined in a place of imprisonment ever since the days of Noah. 5. The recognition of souls in the disembodied state is expressly stated in nearly all the foregoing scriptures.  The rich man in hell at once recognized Abraham and Lazarus across the impassable gulf, and Abraham noticed his lost kinsmen. Moses had died and his body was buried in one of the valleys in the mountains of Moab, but we read in Luke 9.30 that at the transfiguration of Jesus, Moses and Elijah appeared with him and that they were recognized by three apostles. When Stephen was being stoned he saw the heavens opened and Jesus standing on the right hand of God and he said, Lord Jesus receive my spirit. This demonstrates the fact that the spirit of Stephen was not going to die or sleep with his body and that he recognized the Savior in heaven. When St. John was in Patmos receiving the revelation he saw the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held and he heard them cry, how long, O Lord? Revelation 6.9-11. This proves that these disembodied martyrs were not asleep, that they were recognized by the apostle, that they possessed all their faculties, that they could pray, and that they were earnestly expecting the time to receive their resurrected and glorified bodies. These scriptures teach that souls in the disembodied state possess all their mental faculties, thought, memory, reason, perception, unimpaired, and that they have the same moral character that they had in the body, that they have suffering or joy, torment or comfort, that they recognize each other, that they can communicate with each other, that they take a great interest in the moral affairs of this world in reference to its destiny. In confirmation of these scriptures volumes could be compiled of dying sinners who have had glimpses into hell, and dying saints who have had visions into heaven, and recognized the presence of angels and departed friends ere they left the body. For a Christian to be so deceived as to believe that the soul is unconscious after death shows either a lack of scripture knowledge or a mind that is diluted by Satan. End of Chapter 20 Chapter 21 of Soul Food This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Soul Food by George Douglas Watson Chapter 21 Giving the Tenth It is no small perversion of Scripture that the passage in Malachi 3.10 about bringing the ties into the storehouse should always be applied to a spiritual consecration. If thousands of Christians would only take it just as it reads, and begin at once to give God a tenth of all they receive, it would prove to be the keystone in the arch of a full consecration, and one of the greatest blessings of their lives, both spiritually and temporally. Some may say that the giving of a tenth was only a mosaic law, but this is a mistake. It was in practice by the saints of God five hundred years before the giving of the law. Abraham gave a tenth of his spoils to the priest of God, Hebrews 7.4, and Jacob gave a tenth of his income to the Lord. And so far as we know it was the practice of Noah and the saints of earliest ages. When the Holy Spirit gets possession of a soul, he writes this principle of giving a tenth on the heart, showing it is not merely a mosaic but a holy ghost law. There are marvelous spiritual blessings connected with giving a tenth to the Lord. It is a wonderful stimulant to faith. It strengthens obedience on all other lines. It brings light into the mind on other subjects. It is as a safeguard against greed and stinginess. It makes benevolence a fixed affection in the soul and not a spasmodic action. It makes us appreciate our nine tenths far more. It makes God's special providence more real to us. It makes the conscience tender and gives sweet access to God in prayer. It is a great blessing financially to constantly give a tenth of all you receive to the Lord. The living God keeps his financial promises just as absolutely as he does his salvation promises. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty. How few Christians positively believe this word and steadily act on it. They have never yet met a person who gave regularly a tenth to the Lord that ever regretted it. They uniformly testify that since they have done so they have prospered far better in all their temporal affairs. I am absolutely sure with Mueller that God does not want any of his children in debt or destitute, and if all of us who are in debt will repent of the sin for getting in debt and promise God never to go in debt again and to give him one tenth of all we receive and stick to the Covenant with a loving heart, he will begin to work financial mercies for us and soon have us free from debt. See Romans 13.8. After losing my orange groves in the freeze of January 1875 and being heavily in debt, I acted on these principles, and since I made that Covenant, God has wrought up undreamed of financial miracles. A lady thousands of miles from my home wrote to me, to my surprise, saying she felt impressed of God to give me eighty dollars every year till my debts were paid, and many other things have happened just as marvelous. Since that Covenant I have never gone ascent deeper in debt, have never been without some cash money, and have a hundred fold more assurance for all financial supplies than when I had the property. So firm is my faith on this point, that if I had no postage stamp to send a letter to my family, and had some of God's tenth by me, I would not touch it to buy a stamp, but wait on my heavenly father for it. God will not do wonders for us until we get away from our slip shot faith and partial obedience. A great many will say they keep no regular account. They think they give about a tenth, etc. That is the way I used to give, but I see now that it is shillishally obedience. It will please God to give him the tenth and not a guess about the tenth. Then some aim to give a tenth at the end of the month or end of the year. This is degrading our Lord by putting self first and him last. Honor God by putting him and his kingdom always first, and then he will honor you. Just as soon as you give any money, be it ever so small, take out a tenth for the Lord. Do not wait till you spend the nine tenths. Do not use it all up and promise to pay the Lord's tenth out of the next money you get. That is a slovenly, shabby way of dealing with God. Treat your Lord in all these matters with the respect and honor as if he stood visibly by your side. Don't be mean and stingy in your treatment of him, but generous and prompt and free-hearted, and God will treat you like a prince, and ever an anon he will astonish you with some great favor. Be you ever so poor, old or young, married or single, parent or child, even if you have only an occasional dime to call your own, give one cent of it to God. Do it religiously, lovingly, rigidly, and as sure as you live omnipotence will find some way to bless you in your temporal affairs. Will you believe this? Will you begin it once to do it? Ask the Holy Ghost to help you keep it as a holy covenant. Ask for divine guidance just where you should give the tenth. Don't bestow it according to your preference, but keep your mind impartial and the Spirit will lead you where to give it. If you follow this rule you will be perfectly surprised how much you can give away in a year and never miss it. I used to think I was liberal, but since giving a tenth regularly I find I give three times as much as I used to and do it with far more ease and comfort. Give and it shall be given you. God's word is true, obey it, prove it, and see for yourself. CHAPTER XXII Let God The name of God occurs thirty-five times in the first thirty-five verses in Genesis. The word let occurs fourteen times in the same verses. The number thirty-five is five times the religious number seven, and fourteen is twice the religious number seven, and put together they make seven times seven, which is the Pentecostal number of Scripture, so that the words let God form the key to the religious life and the key to the Pentecostal measure of that life. The first let is let there be light, and the last is let them have dominion over all things, so that from the first dawn of divine light in the soul up to the glorious kingdom in the new earth the secret of every step is to be so utterly yielded to the unfolding will of God as to let him work in us and by us and for us. When we are seeking pardon, how all our mental powers are tangled in darkness, all our heart rent with such mingled emotions of fear, hope, and sorrow. How our will struggles like a chained animal, till in self despair we throw ourselves for wheel or woe into the hands of Jesus and just let him save us. Then, when, as believers, we are heart sick over our interior sinfulness of nature and longing for inward rest and purity of soul. After so many sore conflicts and unexplainable alterations between light and darkness we are brought to a crisis, and the little words let God are the only outlet from self struggling into the calm, sweet rest of the cleansing power of Jesus. Those who receive Jesus for the healing of their bodies have the same lesson of let God to learn over again. How much physical or mental suffering we endure, how many swingings of hope and fear between sanity and insanity, between life and death, how many tossings of argument in the reason for and against divine healing, before one learns to yield all the ills of the body to the healing will of Jesus, and without a struggle or an anxiety just let him pour the health virtue of his precious body through every part of the being. And then, in addition to these definite steps of letting God, there are numerous instances in the seeking of the larger endumments of the Holy Spirit. In the Department of God's providences, where we have to learn over and over again to cease from all our planning, all our imaginings of ways and means, all our uneasiness or care, and just calmly, sweetly, patiently, humbly let God manage and work in us and for us along lines beyond all our dreaming. These words, let God, are the latch to hundreds of doors in the fast palaces of divine life and providence. The Lord has ways of shutting up His children at times in mysterious providential walls, through which all their ingenuity and labor can make no door. How often they strive to break through impenetrable walls of limitation and difficulty. Think of ways and agencies of getting through to the brain aches. When at last they lie helpless and limp, and consent to let God do good as He pleases, when low. The iron gates of circumstance and hindrances open noiselessly of their own accord. See Acts 22 verse 10. Because we have let God convert, sanctify, or heal us, does not ensure a perpetual letting of God in all other matters and directions. As a rule, we have to learn to let God do in us and for us over, a great many times, and in a variety of things, before we form a fixed habit of always letting Him. It is only by an intimate union with the Holy Spirit, causing our innermost being to move in steady harmony with God, that we can be ready at every sharp turn and under all sorts of circumstances, to let God mold and move all our welfare according to His best purpose. It is not a cold fatalism or a stoical indifference to God's will, but a warm, bright, Gulf stream of Holy Ghost life in which all the choices, motives, intentions, affections, and volitions steadily coincide and cooperate with God's will concerning us.  Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Let not your heart be troubled.   From this moment lift the latch of your will, and let that eternal, silent sea of love in which all the angels, all the worlds, and all ages float.  If from the very depths of our hearts we yield a constant loving let to God, then He, through the eternal Spirit, will speak into us and for us all those fourteen lets of His marvelous creation. From let there be light, to let Him have dominion over all things. End of Chapter 22 Chapter 23 of Soul Food This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Soul Food by George Douglas Watson 23. Burdens of Prayer While Jesus is making intercession at the right hand of God, the Holy Spirit on the earth is praying through the hearts of those in whom He dwells. The human spirit is the vehicle through which the Holy Ghost pours His deep divine yearnings. End in the same proportion that He widens and fills our soul, will He breathe into us these strong, sweet, melting intercessions, which are according to the will of the Father. It is an infinite honor for the Spirit to put any burden of prayer on us, even when it is for our personal or family welfare, but when He draws us out into the priestly life of Christ and puts in us unspeakable prayer for persons and objects that lie far beyond our personal or family interests, then it is, in a higher sense, praying in the Holy Ghost and alone for God's glory. The Spirit will divide and diversify His burdens of prayer according to the grace and gifts of each believer, calling some to pray in one direction and others in another, and He will put the pressure of prayer on and continue it, according to the soul's capacity and its degree of willing cooperation with God in the prayer. A history of special burdens of prayer as to their intensity and duration would be amazing, especially if traced in connection with the answer that followed. Many years ago the Spirit drew me out in some singular prayers. For over a month I was led to pray for little children who were unmercifully whipped. They would be brought before my mind so vividly I could almost hear their screams, and I would weep and pray for them as if my heart would break. Then for over a month I was burdened to plead for the insane, and at such seasons I could mentally see them and enter into their sufferings beyond anything I had imagined. One day in the winter of 1879 and 1880 there fell on me suddenly a great prayer for the spread of holiness in the southern states. I was led to pray three or four times a day for this. The spiritual condition of the churches, from Norfolk, Virginia, to New Orleans, was revealed to me in such marvelous light from day to day as no one would credit unless they had a similar experience. My tears flowed in streams. My heart swelled and throbbed with unutterable longings to evangelize in my native south land. I was then a pastor in New Albany, Indiana. When that burden of prayer had continued for two months I learned with joy that the celebrated John S. Inns skip and party were in Charleston, South Carolina conducting a great holiness revival. In after years I met Miller Willis of South Carolina and to my surprise I found that he and another friend had been praying together every night for three months and at the same time I was led to pray. Three years after that time I had the great joy of attending a wonderful holiness convention in Gainesville, Georgia at which time there was organized the first holiness association ever formed in the south so far as I know. Since then what has God wrought in the past few years since passing through many inexpressible trials on various lines? It has pleased the Holy Ghost to again draw me out into the deep, warm, Gulf stream of intercessory prayer. I never tire of it and if I can find the time I love to spend from two to four hours every day in secret pleading with God. At 4 p.m. January the 3rd, 1895 an overwhelming prayer came on me for a great holiness mission in San Francisco which continued every day for a year. In January 1895 another burden of prayer was given me for a great revival of sanctification among the black people of the south lasting six months. In September 1895 one afternoon a great longing prayer came in my heart for a mighty outpouring of the spirit in sanctifying and healing power upon the north of Ireland. This prayer for Ireland has been on me with many tears for over seven months. In December 1895 I was burdened for Cuba and Armenia and Persia for their liberation from the beast and the false prophet and opening up to full gospel light. In January 1896 there came a deep sad weeping prayer in my soul for the poor little girl widows of India as I pray for them my heart aches and they seem as dear to me as my own children. In the past three months I have been much drawn to prayer for large outpourings of the spirit in Pueblo, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Stanton, Virginia. In addition to these I have special and peculiar longings in prayer for various persons in some cases for their conversion others for sanctification others for healing others for deliverance from awful snares of Satan which I felt they were getting into others for financial relief others for God to send them to mission fields. Some of these burdens have been painful even distressing some have been accompanied with the longing and pining of heart and some were with a heavenly sweetness and tenorness beyond expression in some cases the prayers came on me suddenly and powerfully and after days or months gradually left me. In other instances they came gradually growing stronger till I would groan and weep for a season and then suddenly leave me. While in prayer for these various places they are brought to my mind so vividly I seem to see the localities scenery and the people and their mental and moral condition and in the case of individuals I am burdened for the Holy Spirit makes me feel at times the very state of their hearts and minds. If they are self-willed I have a distress in prayer for them. If they are yielding I feel a sweet flow of prayer. I hope many who read this will abandon themselves fully to the sway of the spirit in prayer. We thereby enter the true priestly life of our precious Jesus. It may be seen in eternity that we accomplished more by our prayers than by all other things combined. It seems to come into the full realization that the Holy Ghost is actually an omnipotent person extending around the whole world and that he often works in a simultaneous and wondrous way on souls widely separated from each other. A thing that we have believed for years when brought home to our experience by living facts seems so new and powerful to us. In the autumn of 1894 when going through great trouble I spent much time in fasting and prayer it pleased my heavenly Father to encourage me in wondrous instances of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So striking were they that I feel I ought to print some of them for the encouraging of the hearts of others. A lady in Nottingham, England, wrote to me that she felt impelled to tell me how God had used my little book, White Robes, to lead her into the restoration of the fullness of the spirit and that when she went into a private room to pray the spirit in a very definite way put my name into her mind and a special petition in her heart for me. The special petition given to her for me was word for word the very prayer that I was pleading for myself at the same time five thousand miles away. During those months I used to awake quite regularly at three o'clock in the morning and get up and spend an hour in prayer. A very dear minister who walked very close to God came to visit me and said that for some time past he had strangely awakened at three a.m. and had felt led by the spirit to get up to me. During this time I received a letter from a devoted man and his wife whom I had never seen, living in Canada over two thousand miles from my home, saying that several times they had been strangely awakened at three a.m. and clearly impressed by the Holy Spirit to have a season of prayer for me. The evidence was overwhelming that all this was the direct agency of the omnipresent personal Holy Ghost. My whole being was profoundly impressed by those movements of the spirit. I had a stronger light than ever before that the Holy Spirit as an infinite personality enveloped the human race as a tender, watchful ocean of love. I saw an extraordinary proof of his compassion and interest in me, an infallible proof that he would answer the prayers which he had so marvelously prompted. Glory to the triune God forever. At that time in my reading of the Bible certain passages would be powerfully given to me by the spirit as my own and in nearly every instance I would receive. A few days later a letter from some saint saying they felt led to pray for me and that while in prayer the spirit had very definitely given them such a passage of scripture for me which was the very passage given to me some days previous. This leading of the spirit occurred a great many times and in one instance four persons in different parts of the country each wrote giving me the same text as having been impressed on their minds while in prayer for me. I knew these things were not by chance but from God and they made those portions of the word doubly precious to my heart. I have scores of those letters filed away and the passages marked as loving memorials of the minute guidance of the Holy Spirit. I remember one week in the early summer of 1895 that many different things were pressing sorely on my heart. The spirit put on me a burden of prayer which seemed greater than my heart could contain. After pleading with tears for several days I cried out in agony oh lord please put this burden of prayer on some other souls do select some of your dear saints to share this prayer with me. In four days after I received three letters in the same mail one from the city of Denver one from the hills of Kentucky and one from a village in Georgia each writer saying that on a certain day the day of my agonizing prayer they had been strangely and powerfully burdened in prayer for me and all the three testified of having the assurance that the prayer would be answered. You can only imagine how the conjoint testimony of these three letters all received the same moment went through my innermost heart. I have those wonderful letters yet every line of them written as under direct inspiration of God. My poor heart swells with love and my eyes flow with tears of gratitude and I in memory read over and over the life pages of the marvelous far-reaching particular personal and precious leadings of the Blessed Comforter the deeper our union with Jesus the more clearly we recognize the presence of God in everything and event one of the reservation secrets of heaven will be to return the pages of our earthly lives and see every moment of our history from God's standpoint and find that his watchful overruling presence was hidden in the very places where we least suspected him. If we look for wonders we will not likely see them but if we seek in perfect lowliness to please God he will give us some wondrous proofs of his being the living God in the little things of our lives. End of Chapter 24 Chapter 25 of Soul Food. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This recording by Amy Benton. Soul Food by George Douglas Watson. Chapter 25 Praying for an Enemy. I am convinced we have far too shallow views of that command to pray for our enemies. It means a vast more than to say God bless our foes. It means that we are to take them on our heart in good earnest to intercede for them particularly lovingly, perseveringly pray for them till out of a loving heart we can unite their highest welfare with our own. I have been blessed in my life with a few enemies at a few periods in my life with a great many and sometimes they have been exceedingly bitter. But in reviewing the past I noticed that I have had the fewest enemies and the most popularity when I was the least spiritual and the farthest away from God and that when I had deepest fellowship with Christ I have been the most misunderstood by religious people and the most intensely hated by bad people. I can recall many seasons when I felt a necessity to pray especially both for positive enemies and for Christian people who had greatly injured me while they did not intend to be my foes. One such circumstance occurred in the early summer of 1895. A certain very bitter enemy had done many things to greatly damage both me and my family. I had often prayed for him in my secret devotions but one day I felt drawn to go off alone into a forest and spend some hours at the beginning of my prayer I tried to exercise great charity for the man by putting myself in his place and looking at my own miserable self from his standpoint but the spirit soon showed me that was the human way and not the divine. It came to me that what I needed was to love that man with the identical same love that Jesus had for him to pity, sympathize with and feel toward him would be a living vessel in such union with the Holy Spirit that Jesus could love him through me and pour his divine love through my affections. It was revealed to me that in order to love him as Christ loved I must utterly abandon my being to the Holy Spirit for the purpose of becoming a channel of the perfectly unselfish, impartial disinterested, tender and boundless compassion of God. I complied with the suggestion of the spirit and before I had prayed an hour that my soul were broken up my tears flowed like rain I felt a warm, soft love for him all his welfare of body and soul all his family all his temporal and eternal interests became very precious in my sight as I continued to plead with God for his soul's salvation and for all his welfare in detail suddenly the spirit opened up to my mind what a lovely Christian that man would make if he was thoroughly washed in Jesus' blood and filled with the Holy Spirit I seemed to see his soul and all his gifts and powers now so perverted by sin how lovely they would be if transformed by divine grace. As I viewed him under the possibilities of saving grace he seemed transfigured in my vision. I then prayed that I might feel a Christ-like grief for any trouble that might befall him from that moment it has been easy and sweet to pray for him and I never think of him except with a peculiarly tender love. A few months after that man had a great calamity which brought pain and sadness to my heart yet I was accused of praying the misfortune upon him. Our neighbors and acquaintances can never really know what is in our hearts till that great day. It is infinitely more essential that we actually love our fellows than that we convince them of our love. If Jesus was unable to convince man of his love to them are we greater than he? Not to everybody that we need far more than the success of showing it to people. I find the more I pray for anyone the easier it is for me to think well of him and to look at his conduct in the most favourable light. Not only must we pray long and fervently for our positive foes but pray much for religious people who are cold and severe to us for if we do not keep our hearts warm and pure and very tender to everybody on earth we lose that sweet sense of oneness with Jesus is much more than all the friendships of creatures. It is not my calling to make people love me. It is my great business to have perfect union with the Holy Spirit and to love all with God's love whether they love and have confidence in me or not. During the year 1895 the Lord permitted me to have in my life and experience many very wonderful answers to prayer. I wish now to give an account of only one among a great number. It is well known that the orange groves in Florida were nearly all killed in January 1895 so that my property, from which I expected to support, was all ruined. It is well known that the orange groves in Florida were nearly all killed in January 1895 so that my property, from which I expected to support, was all ruined. I was divinely kept for even a thought of a murmur. I fasted and prayed many days and made a solemn covenant with God. First I would ask help of no one except the Lord. Second that I would not go any deeper in debt. Third that I would very rigidly give God one tenth of all he gave to me. My faith had a few testing seasons but I never lacked and I was never out of cash money. The only tender dealing of God for the year in spiritual and physical matters would fill a book. Here is only one. I had more urgent need for money coming due in November. I knew I had no way to get the money but by prayer. So all through September and October I prayed much for the funds and I observed several days of fasting. I was kept in perfect peace, yet intense looking to God. During the last week in October a poor, sanctified widow, fifteen hundred miles from me and who had never seen me, wrote to me that she was very powerfully impressed of the spirit to spend a whole day in prayer for my temporal supplies and that God spoke into her heart that he would supply my needs. I needed one hundred dollars by November tenth and another hundred in December but my little prayer only took in the first hundred. On the 6th of November, after supper, just before beginning the weekly holiness meeting in my house, I was in the library talking with the Lord of my deep need. Suddenly the Holy Ghost opened up to my mind a fresh and strong view of the fatherly provision of God for me. My whole soul was melted into love and peace. Tears of joy flowed down my face. There was something just like a voice talking in my heart which said, money is nothing to me. It is only my wrapping paper and is inexhaustible. Just give me your warmest love and perfect obedience and I will attend to your finances. With these words in my mind I felt my prayer was answered. In four more days the money would be needed and I did not have my mind on anybody on earth to supply it. On the ninth I received a letter from a sanctified businessman several thousand miles away saying that he felt a strong impulse to send me a check for over two hundred dollars. The receipt of the check did surprise me at all for my faith was expecting God to do something. But I walked into the forest and sat down on a log and just gazed for an hour at the great and living God and adored his matchless love and the reality of his personal presence. I did not know which to admire most, the movement of the Holy Ghost on the widow to pray or on the dear brother to send the money. And then to see the accuracy of the Lord's timetable that I at once took out one tenth for the Lord. Now I have written this only for God's glory to encourage the child of God to have perfect faith in him and I earnestly recommend the rigid principles of giving the tenth to God of all that we receive. The Lord wants us to pray very particularly and persistently for all things which are covered by his promises. And it is a good way to prove our earnestness by fasting especially in emergencies. The Lord wonders for his children in saving or healing or filling or providing if they will deeply and perseveringly plead his promises through the merit of Jesus. End of Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Of Soul Food This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This recording by Amy Benton Soul Food Chapter 27 The Divine Pull Often times when I have been travelling on the cars going at the rate of 30 or 40 miles per hour I have felt the train give a sudden pull because the engineer had turned on more steam to increase the speed to 50 miles per hour. To one who travels a good deal and has a keen sense of motion every movement of the train can be readily detected. I can detect when the train turns in the least to the right or left or the slightest pressure of the air brake on the wheels or the least increase of speed. The sensitiveness to the motion of a train should be realised in the spiritual life. If we keep in a very humble and crucified state of mind and an unbroken fellowship with the Holy Spirit the interior sensibilities of the soul will be just as keen as those of the body. We can detect the least slackening of speed or the least veering to the right or left and blessed be God we can be conscious when the heavenly air turns on more spiritual pressure. It will often happen in secret prayer when all the faculties of the soul are open to the sway of the spirit that we can feel a divine pull upon our hearts. A sudden yearning of the soul after God, stronger than hitherto, a deep, sweet passion for Christ takes hold upon the fountains of desire, a longing, an intense craving to be just like Jesus pervades the whole mind. At such moments we feel magnetised. We are conscious that an infinite lodestone is drawing our desires, affections, choices and imaginations up into the brightness and sweetness of God. Such moments are worth more than we can conjecture. We should make everything of them. When the spirit gives us such gentle pulls to himself, we should open the throttle valve of the heart to its uttermost. Let the tears flow. Let ours, if need be, glide away unheeded. Even if it is midnight, let the divine nature open its great, sweet splendours to our mind. Let us push our way at such times into the very bosom of Jesus. Let us take the hint of his drawing and make deep and passionate love with him. At such times let us spread before him all our unselfish longings for the salvation of souls, special petitions for relatives and friends and foes for great revivals, permission fields. While these sweet seraphic winds blow down upon us, let us stretch every sail and oil the bottom of our ships and make all the speed possible. Many a season of prayer is without fruit, because the Amen is said just about the time the blessed spirit is getting his fingers on the heartstrings for a heavenly pull. In the past few months, more than ever in my past life, I am learning to detect the gentle movements of the Holy Spirit in my soul in prayer. Sometimes I begin praying with a weary dull feeling. My thoughts seem dry, my affections seem becombed, and this dryness lingers for ten or twenty minutes. But by fixing my thoughts on God and asking him to breathe in me the very prayer which will most please the Father, and then by patiently waiting and pleading with the infant merit of my older brother, by and by the brightness begins to come. The heart is melted. Tears of love and thanksgiving flow and inexpressible sweetness settles into all my soul. Then all difficulties, all sorrows, all hardships, all burdens, all loneliness, all anxiety of every sort and degree sink away below the horizon, and I find myself in a vast prairie of blooming flowers, magnificent vistas, clear skies, and singing birds, and gently flowing streams, and my whole being seems dissolved into great drops of love. I find it pays immensely to watch the presence of the spirit and to abandon all the activities of my mind in cooperation with his work. Oh, that we may yet so intimate with the Holy Spirit as to take his slightest hint and feel his gentlest pull, and always yield to loving response to his wishes. What an infinite compliment that our heavenly Father should be willing to indicate his thoughts and his desires toward us through the emotions of his spirit. Let us appreciate the least token we have from God. If we respond to his gentle prayer it will enable us to more readily detect any warning or premonition which he may give us of approaching danger or of the blessedness of some golden opportunity. End of Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Of Soul Food This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Amy Benton. Soul Food by George Douglas Watson Chapter 28 Climax of Sorrow In one of Miss Havagau's letters she calls attention to the striking climax in Exodus 3.7 in which God speaks of the notice he takes of all his people's troubles, seeing their reflection, heard their cry, and knows their sorrows. There are some calamities that are visible, such as slavery, scourging, fire, death, disease, poverty, old age, loneliness, inflammation of body, etc. Such afflictions appear to the eye and from the tender hearted call forth sympathetic tears and efforts of relief. Such afflictions are easily recognized and comprehended and the great mass of mankind never seem to apprehend any affliction beyond those of visible troubles. Then there is a second degree of trouble which exists mainly in the soul or mind, in the sensibilities, the affectional nature, the thoughts and memory. Even when outward marks of calamity, on person or property visible to the eye there may still be trouble that shakes and shatters the whole mental frame causing piercing cries and burning tears. That muffled moan, that soft sob, that pitiful wail, these hot tears have historics behind them. Like the round sea waves that break their hearts in moans on the shore, they have come from some distant storm far away on the sea of life. But still such sorrows can be told. They can be described in language and comprehended by the understanding. They belong to that region of our nature which can be expressed. Then there is a third degree of sorrow which lies away down in the immortal spirit, taking hold of the very fountains and springs of our being, so overpowering all the moral and mental and nervous powers as to be beyond all expression, either to the eye or in words. These sorrows are like those great vibrations at the bottom of the ocean, never reported to eye or ear. Like the million fold heat which melts the centre of the globe unknown to those who walk above it. Now the infinitely loving Father sees all the affliction which can become visible. Here's all the cries that can express woe or trouble and then in the great depths of sorrow, unseeable and unutterable, his tender all-knowing heart takes it all in. In the nature of things the love and sympathy of the best saints on earth go only a short ways but the infinite heart of Jesus travels on and out and down to take in every form of pain and sorrow. His precious healing blood can spread its cleansing and soothing power through body, soul and spirit to the last fiber of our being. For every unspeakable sorrow and human experience there is an unspeakable fullness of comfort, peace and joy in the blessed Holy Spirit for when God said, I know their sorrows, it was not merely to tell his omniscience but to affirm that his omniscience was all engaged to deliver and save and heal the sorrow. End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Of Soul Food This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This recording by Amy Binton Soul Food by George Douglas Watson Chapter 29 Our Need of Humility No grace is more befitting to us as human beings than that of perfect humility. As a race we are the weakest and poorest and blindest of any order of intelligences we know of. Our bodies are made out of dust.  We have the weakness of the earth, the infirmities of the animals and the depravity of the demons. We come in the world the most helpless of all creatures. Surely if there is any race of beings in the universe that have any right to pride and vanity we are not that race and it's only a species of insanity that begets in us any degree of pride. In order to see my need of boundless humility let me look at my nothingness. All creatures on me excel me in some one or more particulars. There's hardly an animal or bird or insect that cannot in some particular excel me. Either in speed of motion or beauty of a song or hardiness or docility or some trait which makes me as a creature feel my inferiority. And when I look on the members of my race I cannot find one who does not excel me in some gift or talent or grace or skill or advantage or combination of gifts. The worst of my fellows having them some natural traits. It may be a softness in the eye or a sweetness in the voice or a force of will or a grace of motion or a teachableness of mind or relative disposition to goodness which surpass me. Or they have sinned against less light under worse temptations and have had less advantages than ever I had. I have often read this in books but the time has come when I feel it to be true and my spirit shows us our nothingness. It is so easy for us to find thousands about us who are superior to ourselves. And under his illumination we can find something to love and to admire in all our fellow creatures. Another reason where I should be perfectly humble is because I never lived a day that I have not been a tax to somebody. From the day I was born some of my fellow beings have had to nurse me or to cook or to wash for me or to wait on me and as the years go by how many untold millions of services have been rendered to a poor worm like me by thousands and thousands of my fellow beings. In all these years how many attentions to kindness have I received? How many gifts of love? How many kind words? How many earnest prayers have ascended for me? How many services to the needs of my body, my mind, my spirit, my temporal intellectual and religious matters? And how many times have I wounded and grieved those who loved me most and disappointed the hopes of many? Perhaps I have never lived a day that I have not caused somebody more or less pain or anxiety or trouble. My manners have been unpleasant, my voice harsh, my words unwise, my acts open to criticism, my best deeds have had flaws in them or attended by some infirmity which rendered them less potent than they should have been. In the midst of such facts for me to have one symptom of pride or self-esteem or resentment, coolness or hard feeling toward any of my fellows would be a gross barbarism. And then, when I think of the grief I have been to my guardian angel and the loved ones in heaven who perhaps look down on me all the time and over and above all this, when I think of the grief I have caused my blessed Jesus and Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit, surely nothing so benefits me as to sink always in my own nothingness. All pride of any form or degree springs from self-esteem and overestimate of ourselves. Could we always remember our true nothingness and inferiority? We should never be angry at any creature. We should never say that we have been injured or wronged by anybody. We should never be unkind or severe or impatient with the faults of others. We should never feel hurt at the conduct of another towards us. If we sink constantly into our nothingness with the strict will of God it is impossible for anybody or anything on earth to do us real damage. Strictly speaking no one in the universe can do us any harm but ourselves. What may seem to be a mean treatment that any human being can give us if accepted in absolute self-abnegation and taken as from the loving hand of God will inevitably work for our good. Our nothingness is the fortress in which we should hide. Around that fort our Heavenly Father is as a wall, and no event or any act of others can penetrate that wall and reach us without passing through the divine will. Perfect humility is the doorway into the deepest peace, the greatest deadness to self and to the world. It is the condition of our sweetest union with divine nature. Whenever anything occurs which is painful or disagreeable or seemingly injurious or damaging to our souls or bodies or property let us at once consider our meanness and utter demerit and from that standpoint grace will flow into us and give us strength to endure all things with a meekness and a love which will crown the soul with victory. True humility is not a spasmodic virtue which can be received as a mere blessing once and for all but we must study to be humble, make it a habit of the mind and determine by the aid of divine grace to always put ourselves at the bottom. It is an experience which we are to grow in. Wesley wrote to Asbury that he studied to be little and lowly. No wonder God could so mightily use him while others are studying to be great and pushing their own interests. Let us really desire to be like Jesus keep always in our thoughts how to renounce ourselves and sacrifice ourselves for God and the welfare of others. The more thoroughly we humble ourselves the more truly God is exalted for Christ is glorified in us just in proportion as we do not seek our own. When self is always renounced then the joy of God becomes a continual experience in the heart. Just as all the character and life of the Godhead was formed and expressed in the person and life of our blessed Jesus so in a similar way it is God's design that the fullness of the Christ's life shall be reformed and expressed in us by the power of the indwelling and infilling of the Holy Spirit. That infinite life of spotless, lowly, gentle love is seeking vessels in which to shape and spread itself abroad in the heart and the Holy Spirit is the person who imparts and unfolds this divine life in us. In order that this life may perfectly fill us every obstruction to its inflow in heart and mind and habit must be purged away and then the Spirit in taking possession of us will naturally take the form of our peculiar individuality and innocent characteristics. The Christ's life is a unit but the living forms in which it may be expressed are as manifold as are the individuals that will receive it. As the great ocean pouring itself into the various inlets along the shore will take the form and depth and other peculiarities of those inlets so the infinite sea of divine life in being poured into his creatures will assume the various forms of those creatures and blend itself with all their God-given faculties and temperaments. The blood in our heart takes the shape of the heart but as it is thrown out through all the body arteries and veins down to the least molecule of each organ. Thus Christ is the infinite heart of life and by the Holy Ghost he pulsates that life out into all the members of his mystical body into youth and old age, male and female nervous and phlegmatic temperaments shaping itself according to each one's make and endowment. In like manner this Holy Ghost life can flow through all the natural affections and adapt itself to their form and manifestation. It is God's revealed will that all the natural affections cannubial, parental, filial, fraternal, shall exist in spotless purity and be the appropriate channels for the showing forth the very life of Jesus that circulated in heaven, hence the need of the uttermost purification of every part of our being that nothing may hinder the infinite person of Christ from filling our spirit, mind and body. Though the life takes our individual human form yet the life is divine and its power in and through us is superhuman. We have this treasure in earthen vessels and the reason why this precious life is put into our earthen vessels is because it may more clearly be seen that the Excellency is of God and not of us. Only think of the great honor given to us that we can give individual form and expression to the very life of the Lamb of God. The air I breathe takes the fashion of my lungs and the tones of my voice, which no other in the human race will duplicate.  Hence, instead of fretting over our peculiar makeup or criticizing that of others, let us remember that God will not undo the mechanism or form of our individualism, but his plan is to purge away all sin and self and have each of our diverse individualities utterly filled with his life and spirit. Not to chafe or wrestle with my formation, but to perfectly and always yield it to the possession of the Holy Spirit is the way to victory and blessing. Chapter 31 The Spirit of Crucifixion The act of crucifixion is one thing, but the spirit in which the crucifixion is to be born is another. In some respects the act may be brief and finished, but the inward heart disposition that should pervade crucifixion is a continuous principle extending life ever widening its range over a multiplicity of applications and growing in intensity to the end. This divinely beautiful spirit of self-immolation cannot be defined. It can only be faintly described. It is a heart quality, a soul essence, too fluid to be held in by words. If we could get a vision of the soul of Jesus from the last supper to his death on the cross and have a clear spiritual discernment of all the thoughts and feelings and affections and sympathies and every quality of disposition that was in his nature during those long hours in such a spiritual vision we would see the full-sized mind appropriate to crucifixion. Thousands have had, in greater or less degrees, a spiritual revelation into this history of the soul of Jesus. Such a vision can only be given by the Holy Ghost for it is infinitely beyond the natural reason and imagination. In the same proportion that we discern the spirit Christ had during those hours, in that proportion can we drink of that spirit until we can suffer, bleed, and die in our measure with the very same dispositions he had. It is a silent spirit. It suffers without advertising the depth of its suffering. A dog or a pig will howl and squeal at the least pain of fright, but the lamb quivers and suffers in silence. It can weep until the fountains of tears are exhausted and then it goes to bring interior tears in the heart. Because the outward tears have ceased, its cruel critics think it has no pain, but God can see those hot and visible tears of the spirit and they fall upon his cheek and move his infinite compassion. It can be snubbed, scolded, criticised, misunderstood, misrepresented, unchecked, and hindered in a thousand ways without a groan or a kick or a trace of threatening or impudence. It is sworn misiveness. Out of a passion of divine love it has calmly signed the death warrant to self. It can have a thousand little gifts and treasures and harmless earthly pleasures and pleasant hopes and friendly ties snatched out of its hand without clutching the fingers to hold on to them. It gently and sweetly lets everything go. It can obey God and be rushing at full speed on lines of service and duty for him and then at the touch of God's little air-break it can be brought to an instantaneous standstill without shaking the train to pieces by a single jar or the least jostling of the will from its perfect repose in Jesus. It is a flexible spirit with no plan of its own. It can be turned by the finger of God in any direction without emolments warning. It can walk into a dungeon or a throne, into a hut or a palace with equal ease and freedom. It has lost its own will in communion with God and partakes of the movements of the divine mind as a floating cloud partakes of the movements of the air which encircles it. It can wear old, threadbare clothes and live on plain food with a thankful and sweet disposition without even a thought of envy or coveting the nice things of others. It looks with a quiet, secret, joyful contempt on all the honors and pleasures in learning and culture and the honorable splendors of earth. It inwardly despises what people are longing to get hold of. This is because it sees into heaven and is so fascinated with the magnitude of coming glories that even the pretty and honorable things of this world look ugly to it. It embraces suffering as its natural food. The rugged cross which frightens so many Christians is embraced by this spirit with a sweet, subtle joy because it knows that all suffering will enlarge and sweeten its love. It is love on fire and seeks to get itself out into the avenues of self-abnegation. What other Christians shun as a hardship it gladly accepts as an opportunity of sweeter union with God. It longs for nothing but more love. It likes to die over and over again for the sake of widening its ocean of love. It loves its enemies with a sweet, gentle yearning affection utterly beyond what they would be willing to believe. It can be bruised and trampled on and turn with a quivering, speechless slip and dimmed eye and kiss and pray for the foot that under the pretense of religious duty is trampling it in the dust. This is no fancy sketch. I mean what I say. This spirit, like Saint Paul, longs for the coming of Jesus and yearns to be clothed upon with glorification. It would gladly never have any physical pleasure but for its legitimate needs that are creations of the body. In the language of the wise man it eats for strength and not this spirit will not receive human honor into itself. If it is praised or honored by its fellows instead of eating it as a sweet morsel it offers it up instantly to the Lord as the angel did with the good dinner which was presented to him by Manoa. Its highest delight is in sinking into God and being little. It loves to humble itself both before God and man. It shuns debate and strife and theological argument. It is modest and retiring and loves to get out of God's way and see him work. It would rather see the ark capsize and the cherubim all broken than to put forth its finger to meddle with God's authority. It does not make others wear its sackcloth. It would rather take other people suffering on itself than to take their joys. It has a deep interior vision of the soul of Jesus and is smitten with the divine beauty of Christ's inner heart life and loves to repeat over again the feeling which Christ had. It has glimpses of the face of Jesus when he was dying. It sees the purple tint in his features as his head dropped upon his breast and sees a glory in it which eclipses the splendor of the tall white angels. When the soul enters sanctification it is just the beginning of this spirit which is to spread intensify and brighten until crucifixion becomes an all-consuming passion, a sweetly sorrowful, sadly beautiful flame of self-abnegation which take hold of all sorts of woes and troubles and mortifications and pains, poverty and hardships as a very hot fire takes hold on wet logs and makes out of them fresh fuel for more self-sacrificing love. This is the spirit that opens the Gate of Heaven without touching it. This is the spirit that wears out the patience of persecutors that softens the heart of stone that in the long run converts enemies to friends and touches the heart of sinners that wins its way through a thousand obstacles that outwits the genius of the devil and that makes the soul that has it as precious to God as the apple of his eye. End of Chapter 31 Chapter 32 of Soul Food This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This is a LibriVox recording by Amy Benton. Soul Food by George Douglas Watson Chapter 32 The Tender Lamb There is a startling suggestion as to the revelation of our Lord's character in the use of the word lamb in the Book of Revelation. The word lamb, as used in Revelation is a word seldom used in the Bible. The word lamb, as used in most places in the New Testament is in the Greek Amnos. But in every instance when the word lamb is used in Revelation the Greek is Arneon.  What a stream of Christly character flows in upon our vision through the word Arneon. From it let us make the following suggestions. One. God reveals himself to us in the names which he assumes and there is a progressive unfolding of the different phases of the character and attributes of God from Genesis to Revelation. The next name he takes in the Bible is God in the original Elohim which signifies the uncreated one, the creator. The next name he takes is Lord of which the original is Jehovah which signifies the living one, one who has ever lived and will live forever. It also signifies the life giver. Whenever you find the word Lord in the Old Testament printed in small capitals that is to indicate that the original word is Adonai. The next name found in the Bible is the word Lord spelled with a capital L and the rest of the words in small letters of which the original word is Adonai. This word, Adonai, signifies supporter, upholder, strengthener. Thus we have in these three words the Trinity. The Father is the uncreated eternal fountain. The Son the eternal life giver and the Holy Spirit the eternal supporter, comforter. Now through the Holy Volume we come to other names and titles of God too numerous to expound in this place. He is called our Shepherd, Psalm 23. When we come to the New Testament we find all the names and titles of God in the Old Testament are revealed in brighter and sweeter forms. Elohim is revealed as Father. Jehovah is revealed as Jesus and the Christ and the Lamb of God. Adonai is revealed as the Comforter and the Sectifier and Illuminator. But all these names and titles of God glow with intenser meaning and widen and deepen in their significance in the manifold ways in which they are used throughout the Gospels and the Epistles. The Book of Revelation was written about a hundred years after the birth of Jesus and by that disciple whom Jesus loved who was very aged and his whole being flooded and matured with Christ likeness and eminently fitted to be the translucent vase in which God could pour the ultimate and ineffable splendors of his character and word. And so I take it that this word, Arneon, that is, tender Lamb, gives us the ultimate and most divinely exquisite insight into the eternal loveliness of Jesus possible for us to receive in the state of being. As we move down the stream of that revelation which the Infinite and Eternal One has made of himself, we find many tributaries of added truth and light pouring into the Central River and these confluent streams of names and titles and attributes and characteristics bear us on a tide of ever increasing light and truth and glory until we are born out into the boundless silvery sea of the Godhead whose names and character are God is Light, God is Love, God is a tender Lamb. Such a revelation of God is exactly opposite to what any man-made theories would represent him. Two, from this word, Arneon, we gather the suggestion of the progressive unfolding of the perceptions of the living God in our own minds and experiences. The average sinner, though living in nominal Christian lands with Bibles and churches, has a very crude and almost utterly unscriptural idea of God, very little superior to the idea which a Hottentot has of the Almighty. The very thought of God is that he seldom entertains and then it is mostly an annoyance and a pest to him. When a sinner becomes serious and thinks of repentance and a new life, his conception of God is not that scriptural idea of an infant loving, personal creator who loves him and who loves to pardon and wash his soul, but it's a sort of a confused and a cold view of God which is made up of power and distance and severity and harshness with a touch for majesty and some other attributes. If he does not hear warm and evangelical preaching he is very apt to drift toward the old Calvinistic conception of God, which, though it very properly recognizes in God his eternity and immutability and omniscience and justice and other blessed majesties which belong to him, yet it throws all the conceptions of God into the frosty dome of a cold winter night which does not melt the heart with real pardon and peace. If this awakened sinner has led a step farther and gets the conception of God as merciful and compassionate he then begins to form more angelical views of the Lord. His desire for salvation increases and he has someone to teach him or can get hold of Bible truth by some other means. He will get a perception of Jesus as his substitute bearing his death penalty and willing to pardon him through simple faith. When he believes and receives pardon that lets in a flood of new light in his mind respecting God and salvation he then begins to apprehend God as a father and Jesus as a personal saviour. But there are yet vast regions of Bible truth concerning God which seem to him a puzzling twilight. His perceptions of the Trinity their distinct personalities and attributes hang like an undesernable haze in his mind. If this converted man aims to live a full Bible life he will soon find a deep need of inward purity of nature. If he is led through the appropriate steps to that experience and has a clear apprehension of Jesus as his omnipotent cleanser and will enter that state very soon after this act of pure faith there will come to his understanding another sunburst of glorious perceptions respecting God. There will spring up in his vision an intuitive vision of the Godhead as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He will perceive these ineffable personalities with a clearness and a joy of which he had no previous idea. Then the different names and titles of God in the Bible will be luminous and precious to him. It is likely that this man will be led through a series of trials, sore temptations, heavy crosses, misunderstandings of others, manifold losses and intricate manipulations of divine providence, which will serve as a furnace with its white heat to thoroughly anneal all the previous operations of grace in his soul. In this annealing process he will discover many things in his constitution or peculiar makeup which need grinding away or mellowing and softening and sweetening to make him more perfectly homogenous with the works of God. When the tribulation and the furnace have done their work on him, he will have a celestialized vision, a far penetrating perception, into the fine and ineffable traits of God. He will discern things at each of the three divine persons, glimpses of their several majesties. He will feel an undefinable love for each of them which he cannot put into words. He has now reached that country in which the visions of God which were given to Moses, Daniel and John become familiar to his daily thoughts. Sometimes persons in this state of soul will have sudden flashes of divine light in their inner spirit in which they will see a long and terminable vista into the divine nature. All saints who are favored with these divine flashes bear uniform testimony that it seems to them as if an avenue of glory has opened to them in a stream of beautiful soft light increasing with ever dazzling whiteness in the distance thousands of miles away, brighter and brighter, until it is lost in an undistinguished blaze of blinding light. This vision of light for which there are no words corresponds to the unfolding of the Lord Jesus to his true follower, which is an ever increasing climax of purity, tenderness and love, rising in ever increasing degrees of simplicity and lowliness, until, instead of being the great and overwhelming Elohim which broke the mourn of salvation, it is the unutterable love and tenderness of a little lamb. Oh, what a journey the mind has traveled across that vast stretch of spiritual territory where its perceptions of God were wild, confused and semi-heathen to that state of complete transformation where the three persons of the Godhead have become a constant, sweet vision to his understanding, and in whose infinite love he reposes with all his faculties outstretched in longing desire and gentle confidence like the snowy, plumed sea-birds that float on the undulations of a glittering sea. Our perceptions of Jesus grow just in proportion as we become united to him in our inner being and as we become like him in our affections and will. And on the other hand the clearer and deeper our vision into his personality and character the more deeply we drink of his precious nature and become like him, so that brighter vision ever leads us to a sweeter experience of his love and then a stronger love that is ever widening and clarifying our vision. Thus it is like standing between two mirrors which reflect the same image back and forth ten thousand times, the vision ever increasing the love and the love ever sharpening the vision. End of Chapter 32 End of Soul Food by