The Southland and Beyond
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, some of us have a new conception of thee to-night, because we behold thee in Christ, and we know more of him than ever before.
Vc thank thee that this has been one of the days of heaven upon earth. We thank thee that to some of us it has been a Bethel, and to many of us a mountain of transfiguration. We thank thee that these experiences of to-day are but the foretaste of what shall fill us when we stand in the presence of our God. O our God, help us to write our resolutions, not only in our Bibles, but also in our lives.
Hear us as we pray, and also as we go out from here, let us go in new strength that we may do thy will and begin a work for thee that shall never cease. Keep us from falling, and we shall give thee all the praise. In His dear name. Amen.
SUBJECT — “TIIE SOUTHLAND AND BEYOND.”
“Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs” (Josh. 15:19).
When the children of Israel, who were called out of Egypt, made their way through the Eed Sea, by the way of the mountain of the Amorites* you remember they came to a place called Kadesh Barnea. This is not a mountain, as some suppose, but Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull, who has visited the country and written a book entitled “Kadesh Barnea,” says it is a depressed place. If this is true, as many think it is, it is especially easy to understand the truth we have before us to-night. For if Kadesh stands for the line between the world and Canaan, as we believe it does, it is not possible to go into blessing until we have humbled ourselves. We must come to an end of self and begin to trust Him, and then we will pass from (39
Kadesh Bariica and enter the land flowing with milk and honey.
You remember they sent spies into the land to see if it was fruitful. ‘Go through and see the land whether it is fruitful, and whether the inhabitants are great or small, and come back and tell us.” And when they came back, ten came back to say: “Let us not go in. The people are giants, and we are a weak people. Let us turn away from the land of Canaan.” Then two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, brought in a minority report. They agreed with the others that the cities had high walls around them, and the people were of great stature, ‘’hut the Lord God Jehovah is our God, and will go with us: let us pass over and possess the land promised to our fathers,” But, instead of passing into the land, they turned away again, and, if you would have an illustration of their wanderings from this day on, you have only to read their history, and you have only to read the Ninety-first Psalm that Moses wrote. After years of wandering, certain of them come again to the promised land. They pass over the Jordan and enter upon their possession; and a certain part of the land was given to Caleb, and a certain part to Joshua. Caleb had among his possessions a city called Debir. It was a city of learning, called by some Kirjath-sepher, which, we are told, means “a city of books.” It was inhabited by the Canaanites, and, I suppose, was a strong city, for we find that Caleb did not take it himself. Finally he sent out word that if one would take the city for him, he would give to that leader his own daughter in marrage. And a man named Othniel made the attempt. The city was taken, and there was a marriage in the home of Caleb, and this daughter, Achsah, was given to Othniel in marriage. Caleb gave her for a possession the southland, and then the daughter speaks to her father in the words of the text, “Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs.”
It will be necessary for you and for me, if we appreciate
THE lAFE OF BLESSING
the teaching of this text, especially as bearing upon the surrender we made this afternoon, to go back briefly over the events prior to this point in the history of the children of Israel. I am aware that one can present typical teaching, and make one’s self ridiculous. I know some people take everything in the Old Testament as types, and teach everything as types. Yet I feel I am perfectly right in taking the children of Israel as a type, for Paul said, when writing to the church at Corinth, “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (I. Cor. 10: 11). So I am sure you will bear with me if I spend some time upon such of these as I think will shed light on the text.
Egypt is really an illustration of the world. While Israel was in the darkness of Egypt, in the bondage of those days of slavery, you remember the Passover lamb was slain. It was while we were yet in our sins that Christ died for us. Then there came a day of leading out for Israel. They were led by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. How like your experience and mine! When you were in the bondage of sin the Spirit of God took hold of you, and as you marched along the pillar of cloud changed to a pillar of fire, and to many of us this afternoon the pillar of cloud became a pillar of fire indeed, shedding on us the light and the blessing and the glory of God.
And when they were led out certain Egyptians followed after them. I want to ask you if that was not true of you when you became a Christian? I want to ask you if certain of your sins didn’t follow after you? I am sure you can remember all about it. These Egyptians were pushing after the children of Israel as they came down to the sea. God opened the Ped Sea, and they passed through, and reached the other side in safety. When these certain Egyptians were following them, God pulled the sea together, and the Egyptians were drowned in the sea; and the next day the Israelites saw them dead upon the shore.
One of my friends said he could just imagine those Israelites talking about it as they walked along the shore. ‘‘Why, there is my old taskmaster; he will never trouble me again.” “And there is my old taskmaster,” says another, “I remember how he used to beat me.” And so they walk along and talk of their deliverance. The Red Sea stands for that phase of the atonement of Jesus Christ by which we are not only delivered from the penalty of sin, but also from its power. I hold that if you have certain sins coming after you, there is only deliverance in Jesus Christ. Just as the children of Israel went through the Red Sea, so you and I must be in Jesus Christ.
The wilderness experience is the experience of the average Christian; the Jordan crossing, the experience you came to this afternoon. And Canaan? Well, they say Canaan is heaven — that is, it is heaven here. It is joy and peace and rest and fellowship with God. And so I present these experiences of the children of Israel as illustrations of the experiences of every one of us to-day.
But now the children of Israel had entered into the land, and were taking possession of it. Caleb had given this southland to his daughter and her husband, so they were really in the land of Canaan, but they were just inside — just on the boundary, and the hot winds from the desert could sweep by and make them tremble. Now, dear friends, those of you who this afternoon said, “Yes” to God, went down to the Jordan, and entered into the land, but we are still in the southland. If you are of the idea that the act of surrender was all that you needed to do, you will find that the hot winds of the world can sweep against you; and you will see that there are sweeter experiences beyond that of this afternoon. Some of you will say, if you stop where you knelt this afternoon, “Well, it is just as I thought; there is nothing in the ‘Life of Blessing after all.” I don’t need to tell you who are older in the Christian life than I that there are certain things that come to us as gifts of God — just as at regeneration I receive pardon,
I also receive justification, and justification is more than pardon.
When God pardons he justifies freely — freely. John Robertson says that justification is paying- the debt and giving us the receipt. IlaVe any of you ever owed for a bill of goods in a store and could not pay? You would not want to go around the store; you would say, There is that bill I cannot pay, and I am ashamed to look the man in the face.’’ But if some one just pays it for you, what then? You can just walk in the store and say: “I know there is that old bill, but I have here the
receipt for the payment of it. Here is the receipt paid in full.” Our blessed Lord, now entered into the presence of God, is our surety. He stands for us before God, and bears in his hands and feet and in his side the marks of the nails and of the spear. He paid the debt. We love to sing:
“Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.”
Then we read in Romans 5: 1, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In that verse we read that we have “peace” with God. This is a wonderful thing. But in Philippians we read that we may have the peace of God, and this is not all, for we are told that we may have the God of peace — that is where you push on from the point of surrender. YTiat the life of peace is, is hard to describe. It is ours; it is our birthright; it is “peace, peace,” perfect peace. How I love to say it! I can think of only one verse to describe this life of peace, “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”
There are so many people who can only he called Calvary Christians. They never see Christ anywhere but on the cross. But he has gone away from the cross into glory; think of him there! There are some who never get beyond Calvary.
And there are some who never get beyond the point of the resurrection. They are resurrection Christians. Do you re-THE SOUTHEANl) AND EEVOND 73
member that verse of Paul’s, “Kaised again for our justihcatioii”? Some people say that justification is all there is of the Christian life, but there is more than that.
Then, there are some people who may be properly called forty-day Christians, Do you remember how, during those forty days, the disciples were sometimes so near they could touch him, and eat with him, and sometimes so far away that if you said, “He is risen,” they might have answered you, ‘Well, I thought yesterday that he was risen, but I may have been deceived.” There are those who are near him in the Bible conference to-day, but next week they will begin to fear it was only a passing thing. “I thought he was near, but it may have been only emotion.” Do you believe him when he says, ^‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age”?
And then there are those who are ascension Christians. They believe the second chapter of Acts and the thirty-third verse. They believe everything that Peter said in that wonderful sermon of his, when he told the J ews that Christ was risen and glorified and at the right hand of God the Father. I will read the verse, “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.” “Yes, I believe that.” But, dear friends, have you accepted it for yourselves?
And there are the pentecostal Christians. They believe that all of the manifestation of the Holy Ghost is for them. They believe that whatever our risen Head received he received in trust for us. The pentecostal Christian is the one who possesses the Spirit and is possessed of the Spirit.
Now, where do you find yourself in practical experience? At Calvary? Come on to Pentecost, I pray you. If you have not yet come to Pentecost, but are stopping on the way, come on to Pentecost to-day.
The most of my talk is introduction; a few words, the sermon itself. “Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs.” Yes, our Father is ready to do for you and for me far more than simply giving us the southland. Let us take from the hand of the glorified Christ the things he has received in trust for us. Let us ask for the springs of water. We shall receive the upper and the nether springs.
What is a nether spring? I hold and you hold the same truth, that you and I shall be greatly disappointed if we believe that all there is in the life of blessing is this surrender of to-day; but if we believe that God has more for us, and we step out on his promise, we shall be filled with joy to-morrow, and live in the place of blessing here, and look forward to the time when we shall see the blessed One face to face.
Three things, it seems to me, are “nether springs”: First of all is this Bible. How do you read your Bible? That is the first spring. I think the minister ought to read the Bible for himself, and give the people the overflow of his own experience. That is what Mr. Spurgeon always did. And do you know that if you read the Bible in this way you will be overflowing with blessing to those who would hear you?
Do you remember the story of the blind girl whose friends gave her a Bible with raised letters? You know she lost the acuteness of touch in the ends of the fingers, and so she could not read the Book; but she would take it to another friend, that that friend might get the sweet messages that had made her heart burn. And then it was that its sweetness was revealed in a new light. As she was carrying it over to the home of her friend, it was like giving up her best friend, and she raised it to her lips to kiss it once, and when the Bible touched her lips, she felt on her lips the words, “The Gospel according to Saint Mark.” I have found that when I read with the mind only, I get nothing compared with what I receive when I put my heart up against it. I can feel the throbbing of the fieart of the infinite God. Have you learned it? It is a nether spring.
2. Prayer is a nether spring. If you are not constantly learning the lesson of prayer, so that whatever you do you can easily turn to God and breathe a prayer, it will not be possible for you to know much of the ^Xife of Blessing.”
3. There is still another nether spring. Have you ever after the day of surrender been ‘filled with unrest and dissatisfaction? I know the reason. Try to breathe out six times without breathing in once, and you will find that you breathe in first, and then out; that you make your effort to breathe in and none to breathe out; and that your breathing out is in proportion to your breathing in. We have failed, many of us, because there has been too much of giving out and not enough of taking in from God.
4. Another nether spring is the getting alone with God and laying hold of his fullness, when the overflow of our lives is the rich blessing for those about us.
The text speaks of “upper springs”; there are two of them: One is’ fellowship with Christ by the Spirit. Fellowship is real and close, and is the channel through which the life and the power of God flows into our lives. If it does not in your life and my life, there is a reason for it.
And the last of the upper springs is your eyes open so you can see Christ.
Dr. H. M. Wharton tells about a man coming up from the South on the train with him, who was much excited as the train came along. Whenever a station was called he would hurry to the platform and look out, and so he watched every place they passed. ^Triend,” said he, “what can be the matter with you? You seem greatly disturbed at every station.” ‘Well,” said he, “I went down from my home a blind man, and the treatment I kave received in Atlanta has brought to me light. Every one of these stations is near my home. I have heard their names, but have never seen them. I have friends whom I have never seen, and my wife and my child are waiting for me, and I have seen them only with the touch
of my fingers, but they are the most beautiful people in the world, I think,” Finally, the trainman called out a station, and the blind man who now saw sprang down the steps, and my friend said, “When I looked out I could see him; and above the roar of the departing train I heard the man shout, as he held his wife in his arms, and his little child clung to him, Glory to God, I can see,” It will be like that for us who behold him. Idiat is the upper spring. May you drink out of it to-day, and may God help you! Let us bow our heads in prayer, and be very honest with God.
And now may grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be and abide with you all forever. Amen.