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TZfE KEY TO GOD’S STOREHOUSE
0 man will ever get from the storehouse
of God any rich blessing until he has
a conscious. need in his own heart of
that blessing. I have been often struck
with that passage in Jas 1: 5: “If any
of you lack wisdom.” The word lack
there is a strong and significant word.
The original can scarcely be translated
into English. The word lack is the best
N
word we can supply, but it has a deeper meaning;
it is a more comprehensive word. It reveals a con
scious need. “If any man have a conscious need,
let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally
and upbraideth not.”
THE GUIDING HAND.
If you will come with me for a bit of travel
back through the Scripture pages of the Word of
God, we will find ourselves standing at the Ford
of Jabbok. We are looking upon a wonderful scene.
’Jacob has been overtaken by the angel. Jacob has
been running from God; the angel has overtaken
him, and there, at the Ford of Jabbok, we find the
angel wrestling with him for the purpose of bring
ing him to see his conscious dependence upon God.
Jacob has riot seen it. He has felt that he could
paddle his own canoe; but God, having so greatly
loved Jacob,’ and having so great a destination for
him to fill, arrests him and wrestles with him until
the break of day. At the break of day the wrest
ling ceases. God has won the victory; Jacob’s
proud, self centered heart is conquered; and there,
in his helpless, dependent state, with his thigh
knocked out of joint, maimed and crippled for life,
this man, who might have been spared this had he
surrendered earlier, looks up through a dependent
eye and a broken heart into the face of Him who
is so mighty as to speak and the worlds fly full
orbed from His lips.
And, my brethren, what God wants with the world
of believers today, primarily, in order that he may
shower upon them the richest and rarest blessings
of heaven, is to bring us every one to that point
iri our lives where we can see our unworthiness and
His power. There is too much trifling with God
today. There is too much speaking of God as if He
were at our command. I grow day by day more
'into dislike with that kind of familiarity with God.
I tell you, my brethren, when we come into the
presence of God it ought to be with uncovered
heads, we ought to come into His presence with
the thought coursing through us of the immaculate
holiness and all-mightiness of God. And until we
Come to see God in that light we will never be in
the attitude to receive His blessings. That man
who assumes to direct his own canoe will finally
find himself upon the breakers, his life wrecked,
his hopes destroyed. Oh, that we might all realize
our need of the Guiding Hand! There never was a
time in the history of the church when we were
more helpless and more dependent upon God, nor
was there ever a time when God was more willing
to aid.
The next line of preparation before we can re
ceive the very richest blessing from God is that of
supreme desire. It is not enough for one to realize
his need, his helplessness and dependence upon God.
That is the foundation, that is the preliminary step
of preparation, but that is not enough. With that
must be the supreme desire for the will and glory
of God to be manifested in our lives. Turn to John
7:37, and see what Jesus says, as He stands before
the multitude that throngs around him: “If any
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.”
There the condition is that of supreme desire.
The word thirst is another word whose deep signi
ficance cannot be expressed in the English. It
means to desire, but it means more than to desire;
it is the burning passion of desire. I cannot find
a word with which to express it; I can perhaps bet
ter express it to you byway of illustration.
After the Spanish-American war a friend of
mine, returning, told me this story. He said, “For
The Golden Age for April 23, 1908.
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len G. roughton, *D. *D.
Stenocraphically reported for The Golden Age. —Copyright applied foi.
three long days I lay upon the sand banks of
Santiago without a drink of water,” and not many
of us can realize how hot those sand banks are.
Toward the close of the third day I came to the
place where I was wiping to give my right arm for a
drink of water. I would have given more; I would
■have given my right and my left both. I would
have given more. I would have given my life for
one drink of clear, sparkling water, but I could not
get it.”
THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
That is what is meant by this word “thirst.”
“If any among you thirst, let him come unto me
and drink.” “If any among you come to the plape
in your lives where you will give everything you
have, your right arm, your left arm, your life, your
all, let him come to me and I will give him drink.”
That is the teaching of that Scripture. That is the
man or woman who will open to the fullest the
storehouse of divine blessing.*
And, my brethren, the failure to come into that
experience is the trouble with the church today.
You ask me why it is we are having such slow prog
ress in the Kingdom of Christ ; why the church,
after having back of it a history of two thousand
years, and equipped as it is today with a multipli
city of machinery, having the wealth of the world,
practically, in its membership, why, you may ask,
is the church, which is so well equipped, making
such slow progress today? Why is it that the
church in our community, where, in every section
of the city there is a church house and congrega
tion assembled, why is it that, with so many toiling
men and so much machinery, we are making such
slow progress as we are making today in the direc
tion of bringing unsaved ones to Christ? Why is it?
It is not hard to explain. It is because we have to
too great an extent done our work in the energy
of the flesh. We have left God out of account.
We have not’, first of all, been brought to a place
of realization of our complete dependence upon the
all-mightiness of 'God’s arms. We have done our
work through the energy of the physical and the
intellectual man, and God has been left out of
account.
In the next place it is because, though we may
realize our dependence, we are so taken with all
the other things of this world as not to make God
and His glory uppermost in our lives. May God’s
Spirit search us as we think of this. Have we
reached that place where we would be willing to
sacrifice this right arm that we might please Him?
Would we be willing to go through this life without
arms? Oh, have we gotten to that place where we
just say, “It is God, or death! No further can
I go; no more bridges will I try to build over this
chasm, never another step until God shall take me.”
If that is our experience today, the storehouse
of God’s blessings is open to us. Oh, my God, help
us to see it, our need and our supreme desire to
glorify God!
“Oh,” you say, “you are speaking to preachers
and teachers and evangelists and the like, who
ought, of course, to have the glory of God uppermost
in their lives!” Oh, my brethren, we should not
have it any more than you should have it as your
ruling pass-ion! In business; you ought to come to
the place where every stroke of the hammer as a
mechanic is unto the glory of God; where every
dollar that you count as a cashier shall be .unto the
glory of God. You ought to come to the place where
every yard of cloth you measure as a salesman
or a saleswoman is unto the glory of God —all to
His glory, none of self. That is the supreme ruling
passion that must seize every believing heart if it
would be brought in connection with the power house
of heaven. It is not necessary that a business man
shall resign his business and get into the pulpit to
please God. God does not want every man to
be in the pulpit. God wants that in the place where
he has put you, there you are to serve, and He is to
be the ruling passion of your life.
VICTORY THROUGH PRAYER.
Then the last point that I want to mention is that
of prayer. “If any man lack wisdom, let him
ask of God. ’ ’ My brethren, there is no victory to us
as Christians in any line of service without much
praying, and if I had to speak the one thing’ that I
believe to be hindering the progress of the church
of God more than anything else, it would be the
prayerless life of the people of God. We are get
ting too busy to pray. We are so pre-occupied that
we do not find time to pray. In the morning we are
hustling and bustling about the house to get off
to work. In the evening the demands are so great
upon us that we cannot find time to pray. If we
call a meeting of prayer for the people of God
we can scarcely get enough men and women to have
a decent prayer meeting. We are becoming . a
prayerless people. People of God, dependent upon
Him, having in thir hearts a desire to please Him,
are leaving out the one thing essential in the life
of blessing, and that is prayer.
Oh, when we get in trouble we are willing to pray!
When sickness comes, then we are willing to pray.
When the death angel comes, then we are willing
to pray. But when there is a chance to work, when
there is a chance for our lives to count, then we do
not pray, and, after all, that is when prayers count
for the most with God.
Some time ago I was talking with a good woman
about some great trouble which came into her life
and I said to her, “But for the fact that you had
an open ear in heaven in which to speak, you could
not stand your trials; is it not so?
“Yes,” she said, “that is a great privilege. But,
do you know, there is one thing I rejoice in more
than Ido the fact that God’s ear is open to me today
in my trouble?”
I said, “What is that?”
“It is the fact,” she said, “that in the days of
my prosperity and my peace I piled up with God
such a volume of prayer as that it will keep Him
occupied in granting those requests in the days of
my trial.”
That is the right conception of prayer. Back in
the days of prosperity when everything was pleas
ant, when everybody had a smile for her, back there
in those days she was true to God and maintained
her daily devotions, and to use her words, piled up
such a mountain of prayer that God would find
Himself busy in granting her prayers in the hour
of her need. *
I think the one thing that must have comforted
Mary and Martha most when their brother lay ill
and when he died, was the fact that back yonder
when there was no sickness, no sorrow, no sadness,
their home was open at all times for Jesus, and that
oftentimes He found there rest for His weary feet,
drink to quench His thirst and food with which to
sustain His body. Their home was the home of
Jesus in the days when they did not realize their
great need of Him. And now that there has come
into that home this sorrow and sadness, this un
expected dispensation of divine providence, it was
so easy for them to look up into the eye of Jesus
that day when He came. Oh, men and women, in
the days of your prosperity, of your peace, when
everything seems to be in your favor, that is the time
to make a friend of Jesus; that is the time to
pile up jour great volume of prayer; that is the
time to insure the open ear of God.
i When Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey first went to
England it was not with any expectation of engag
ing in services. They went there simply to rest
attei the great campaign in New England and other
parts of the North. They were broken down in
body and took to the sea with the hope of getting
rest.
Ihe first Sunday after they arrived in London,
Mr. Moody was asked to preach for a brother min
ister. He endeavored to beg off, but there was no
getting away from it. That pastor had suddenly
found that the great American evangelist who had
