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4 The Tabernacle Pulpit During the absence of Dr. Len G. Broughton in England our readers have been delighted to read each week the sermons which he has delivered in Westminster Chapel, Dr. G. Campbell Morgan’s great church in London. The Tabernacle pulpit has been filled for three months by Rev W. L. Walker, who is associated with Dr. Broughton in the Tabernacle extension work, and it is only just to our readers to give them a glimpse into the life and powers of a man ■who has performed so remarkably the difficult task of following a world-famous man like the Taberna cle pastor. Mr. Walker’s audiences have been magnificent, the Tabernacle auditorium generally being filled “pit and galleries.” He has preached the old-time gospel in attractive simplicity and winsome power. Mr. Walker is an alumnus of both Davidson Col lege and Princeton Seminary and was for some years pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Greenville, S. C. Later his views underwent a change as to the subject and act of baptism and he became a Baptist, but still so much beloved by his Presbyterian brethren as to be invited by them to help in revival meetings. He has been the pop ular and highly successful pastor at Quitman, Ga., and Vineville, Macon, but felt impelled to give up the pastorate for evangelistic work. He has been blessed with great revivals this year at Fort Gaines, Eatonton, Newnan, Covington and Waycross, and his invitations are many more than he ea naccept. Genial, magnetic, scriptural and deeply spiritual, William L. Walker is already a young man of solid performance and yet more splendid promise. Dr. Broughton spent last Sunday on the ocean, and instead of his regular sermon we present to our readers a strong sermon by Mr. Walker, preach ed in the Tabernacle pulpit on “The Human Will.” The Will in Christian Living. Wilt Thou Be Made Whole? Jno. 5:6. HE sovereign will is the mightiest thing in human nature. It is the basal, fundamental force in personality. It is the executive power in man. Man is a little army of faculties and forces, the will is the commander. It directs and controls the whole life. It is the pilot that sits at the helm and directs the course of one’s life. Tide and cur- T rent and tempest may hinder and retard, but the firm grip of a resolute will re-enforced by divine power will bring the life safe into the haven of success and blessing. The will is the citadel of man-soul. Man may be and is reached through the intellect and emo tions, but the thing reached is the will. You nev er really reach a man till you have reached his will. Right willing, then, is more important than right thinking or right feeling. We are not what we know or what we feel but what we will. It is not a man’s intellectual conceptions or inward emotions that reveal his character, but the choice of his will reveals what he is. The Hougomont farm house was the storm center in the battle of Waterloo. Both Wellington and Napoleon knew that whoever could capture and hold this point was sure of victory. God is seek ing to capture man’s will. When he gets the will he gets the man. Victory or defeat depend entire ly on who gets possession of this citadel, the hu man will. Man’s Will Perverted by Sin. Sin has left its blight on man’s whole nature. The poison has permeated every part of his being. His intellect is beclouded and he can not under stand the things of God. His affections are per verted and he loves the world and the things of the The Golden Age for October 18, 1906. world rather than God. Sin has also affected man’s will, the very root of man’s being. So man is radically wrong. He chooses wrong things. He turns to his own way and his way is not God’s way. Jesus came to restore man and bring him back to God. Regeneration, the inner work of the Spirit, and conversion, the outer manifestation of that work, is the right adjustment of man’s will, and through the will his whole being, toward God. Dr. Gage, of California, tells of an interesting experience with a magnetic needle. His compass got wrong, so that the arrow of the needle pointed toward the south instead of the north. It was not just a slight deflection. The compass was radi cally wrong. No matter in what position it was left it would turn and point due south. He tied it in the right position and left it for a week. But as soon as it was free it swung around and pointed toward the south. It was a scientific ease of total depravity. He took that perverted compass needle and placed it on a large piece of magnetized iron, called lodestone. He left it for twenty-four hours in company with the magnetic iron. When he took it off the needle was converted. Now it points f t - ■ * r£L ' ’*r'■’Si VsHBBkSt jmHk REV. W. L. WALKER of itself faithfully and continually toward the north star. Its nature was changed—radically changed. An outside influence had changed its in ner nature. That needle was regenerated—it was converted. Two fishermen once spent an afternoon with Jesus. Their lives, imperfect and sinful, came in touch with his own beautiful, strong, pure life and they were transformed. It is true that a rightly adjusted needle may be temporarily deflected. Simon Peter swung back into his old life of lying and profanity. A great storm of temptation may sweep the soul far out from its heavenward course. But if the will has been surrendered and Jesus is at that helm the clouds will lift and the stars will shine and that weather beaten and storm tossed soul will turn its face toward God. Out of the depths of a broken and contrite heart, Simon Peter looked up into the face of his Master and said, “Lord, thou knowest all things, the failure, the sin, the oaths—all of it, and yet thou knowest that I love thee.” The Will and Temptation. There may be that within you that responds to the temptation. But there is a world of difference between temptation and sin. It is the consent of the will that makes the sin. Jesus himself was tempted. All depends on our attitude toward sin. The resolute will says, “No, get thee behind me, Satan,” and prays continually, “Lead me not into temptation.” A pastor once asked a little girl who applied for church membership, “Have you experienced a change of heart?” “Yes,” was the reply. “Were you a sinner before?” “Yes,” was the answer. “Are you a sinner now?” “Yes,” again was the answer. “What, then, is the difference between your former and present condition?” She thought for a moment, then, her face brightening, she said: “Before I was converted to Christ I was a sinner that runs after sin; now I am a sinner that runs from sin.” The Will and Repentance. In repentance there are three things: 1. A recognition of sin—an intellectual pro cess. 2. A godly sorrow for sin—an emotional ele ment. 3. A forsaking of sin—an act of the will. Any repentance that does not touch and move the will to act is counterfeit. There are many so called conversions that are not based on true re pentance. The intellect is convinced, the emotions are moved, but the will is untouched. Light has come, the soul is moved, the tears flow. But a compromise is effected and a promise is registered to “try to do better.” So the awakened soul is lulled to sleep again, but the seat of his trouble is untouched. He is still an unrepentant sinner be fore God. Man, I do not ask you, can you cry? I’ve seen men who could cry like a crocodile at a meeting and swear like a sailor the next day. I ask you, what are you going to do about that sin that God has revealed to you, the sin that is blighting your life and damning your soul? Will you turn from it? Will you give it up? You must make the choice. What the will does is real and nothing else. The Will in Conversion. The impotent man, helpless and almost hopeless, is waiting by the pool—waiting for the troubling of the water and for some human hand to help. The Master moved with compassion toward him stands near. He desires to help him. He has power, the very power the impotent man has not and needs. He purposes to heal him. But he does not break in upon him and heal him in spite of himself. He stands on the outside of that man’s personality and knocks: “Wilt thou be mad© whole?” It is the will that swings wide the door of the heart for the king of glory to come in. Sal vation is of God, absolutely. No impotent, sin paralyzed man can by his own resolution decide to walk and do it. He is without strength and ability to do the thing that he would like to do and that he ought to do. “It is not of man that willeth.” If born again it is “not of the will of man” but of God. What is God’s attitude toward the lost? (1) It is not His will that any perish. (2) He has made provision for the salvation of all. I believe in a “limited atonement,” but the limit is to “every creature” in earth’s remotest bounds. There are two “alls” in Isaiah 53:6: All have gone astray. God hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (3) He offers that salvation to all who will accept. The Spirit of God illumines, convicts and draws—and no one can come to the Father unless he is thus moved upon. But the final crisis of the soul comes when God puts before him the way of life and the way of death and says, “Choose ye.” The essential element of the will is choice. Man can choose or refuse. God himself has not fettered him in that choice. There may be great and terri ble conflicts but the will must render the final de cision. In this decision to believe God meets the sinner with power to believe. The impotent man