Waiting for Something Inside to "Break"
A barrier to the conscious service of Christ is, with many souls, the fear that a desired and necessary change in their inner being has not taken place. This fear is commonly caused by a sad error on their part, resulting from the wrong preaching and teaching to which they have listened, or from their misreading of the Bible as improperly translated, or as incorrectly understood. But whatever has caused it, the barrier, real or supposed, often exists, and it must be met and wisely dealt with.
As illustrative of a multitude of similar cases, a single instance may be cited out of my sphere of observation. A prominent man in a New England community had been brought up under the best re-Mow to Deal with Doubts
ligious influences then prevalent in that region. He had from boyhood been accustomed to read the Bible and pray day by day. He was regular in church attendance. He was careful and strict in his morals. But all this was, as he had been taught, of the outer man; it did not touch or indicate the inner life or spiritual being. He had been taught from the pulpit and by the religious literature of the day, that until he had been converted, or regenerated, he would have no right to count himself an accepted child of God. And for this change, which he had no power to compass, he waited and hoped and prayed.
When he grew up and married he was ready to do anything and everything in his own power to show his readiness and desire to be Christ’s, but for the essential change of spiritual nature he felt he must wait God’s time and act. He was faithful in personal and household worship. He conducted family prayers regularly. He asked a blessing at his table. He taught
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a class of young men in the Sunday-school. But he felt he had no right to count himself a converted, a regenerated, a new-born, soul. All that he could do in God’s service he was ready to do, but conversion, or regeneration, was God’s work. For that he must wait God’s time and method. More than half a century passed away, leaving him as it found him so far as this was concerned.
His children, brought up under these influences, were led by their Sunday-school teachers and companions to confess Christ as their Saviour, and they became active as teachers and as church workers. But the good and sad-hearted man remained outside the recognized fold of Christ. This was so to the last of his earthly life. It was doubtless a blessed surprise to him when he was welcomed by his Saviour as one of his loved ones, when his spirit-eyes were opened beyond the veil of flesh. Yet that good man was only one of multitudes who have lived and died in Christ’s service thinking that they had no right to trust Christ as their Saviour because some mysterious change, which they could neither understand nor secure, had not been wrought in them. What a realm of doubt and of doubters is opened before us by such an illustration!
Years after this, which was my first acquaintance with one of the “outside saints,” — kept outside by the barrier of doubt raised by mistaken teaching, — I was brought into close association with another doubter of the sort, who was even more positive, although less intelligent, than the other, on the subject. The son of a godly and strict father, whose views in the line of a certain phase of old-fashioned orthodoxy were pronounced and outspoken as to man’s inability of himself to turn to God, was near me socially, and sat near me in church. In him I became much interested, and I sought to lead him to an open confession in Christ’s service. But I found that the young doubter was positive as to
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his right or power to act until God made him willing and able. In response to the most tender and earnest invitation, he said:
“I wish I could trust Christ as my Saviour, but I know it isn’t possible until my heart is changed.”
“But have you nothing to do in the matter?”
“My part is to wait and be ready. I come to church and prayer-meeting regularly. God knows how I feel about it, but until he converts me I cannot be a Christian. I cannot convert myself. So there it is.”
That erroneous view was a barrier of doubt. My words, with my knowledge and experience of them, unfortunately did not move it or him.
In another case, one with whom I prayed was helped to imagine that he had evidence that God helped him over that barrier, and his fancy was suggestive as showing the working of many a man’s mind. He was a man who had been a
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soldier in my regiment in the Civil War, After the war, when I was preaching on a Sunday evening in the pulpit of a friend, in Massachusetts, I saw this man before me. At the close of the service the man came up to greet me, and I invited him to go with me to the pastor’s house for a talk. He came, and we were soon together in a room by ourselves. After a few words over old experiences, a conversation somewhat like this ensued:
“Have you ever confessed Christ as your Saviour?”
“No, I have not; but I wish I could.”
“Are you ready to give yourself to
Christ with all your heart?”
“Indeed I am. But I suppose I must be converted.”
“God will take care of that, if you will commit yourself to him without keeping anything back.”
The man had been a good soldier in war time, and he knew what enlisting meant.
“Are you ready to enlist in Christ’s ser-MaitinQ for Somctbing tneitc to ‘^^Brcaft**
vice here and now, not merely for three years, but for all time?”
“I am, and I’d like to.”
Then we two dropped on our knees together, and I told the Lord that here was a new recruit who wanted to be under Christ’s flag, and in the Saviour’s service. I asked the Lord to accept him and to help him to be true.
As we rose from our knees, the hearer of the evening, with the light of joy in his face, exclaimed jubilantly:
“Chaplain, it’s all right now. I’m sure it is. When you prayed there, I felt something sort o’ break inside of me. I think I needn’t have any doubt any more.”
I knew the soldier spirit of my old comrade. He was loyal and patriotic. He was glad to enlist, but he thought that God had a special work to do, for which he had waited. And now he was encouraged to believe that, as we prayed, a sign of God’s willingness to accept the recruit had been given. This he called the feeling that something inside “sort o’ broke.” The way of duty and of faith was plain thenceforth to him.
The command “Be converted” was an improper translation in our old Bibles. The phrase is correctly rendered, in the Revision, “turn,” or “turn again.” Turning toward God is a simple duty whenever one is on the wrong track, however often he needs to turn. Theological errors of generations cannot always be removed by formal discussion with an anxious soul, but that soul may be led to see that God is now ready to take him just as he is, and that God will cause to “sort o’ break” whatever inner bond had held back the willing soul.