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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Power: 17. Your Personality Needed
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Power (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 17. Your Personality Needed
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Your Personality Needed
Then there is a second question from God's side to ask about those ugly words: thoughtfully, and yet plainly—Is it the fault of Jesus, the Son of God? And let anyone listen to Him speaking in that tenth chapter of John. "I lay down My life for the sheep. No man taketh it from Me. I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down and power to take it again." And then go out yonder to that scene just outside the Jerusalem wall. There hangs Jesus upon that cross, suspended by nails through hands and feet. He is only thirty-three. He is intensely human. Life was just as sweet to Him that day as it is to you and me tonight. Aye, more sweet: for sin had not taken the edge off his relish of life. Plainly He could have prevented them. For many a time had He held the murderous mob in check by the sheer power of His presence alone. Yet there He hangs from nine until noon and until three—six long hours. And He said He did it for you, for me. Do not ask me to tell how His dying for us saves. I do not know. No one statement seems to tell all the truth. When I study into it I always get clear beyond my depth. In a tremendous way it tells a double story; of the damnable blackness of sin; and of the intensity of love. I do know that He said He did it for us, and for our salvation, and that it had to be done. But as we look today on that scene, again the question: does any of the blame of the awful statements this book makes regarding your friends belong to Him, do you think? And I think I hear your hearts say “surely not."
Well, the Father has done His best. No blame surely attaches there. The Son has gone to the utmost limit. No fault can be found there. There is just one other left up yonder, of the divine partnership—the Holy Spirit. What about Him. Listen. just as soon as the Son went back home with face and form all scarred from His brief stay upon the earth, He and the Father said, "now We will send down the last one of Us, the Holy Spirit, and He will do His best to woo men back," and so it was done. The last supreme effort to win men back was begun. The Holy Spirit came down for the specific purpose of telling the world about Jesus. His work down here is to convict men of their terrible wrong in rejecting Jesus, and of His righteousness, and of the judgment passed upon Satan. Only He can convince men's minds and consciences. A thousand preachers with the logic of a Paul and the eloquence of an Isaiah could not convince one man of sin. Only the Spirit can do that. But listen to me as I say very thoughtfully—and this is the one truth I pray God to burn into our hearts tonight—that to do His work among men He needs to use men. He needs you. "Oh!" you say, "it is hardly possible that you mean that. I am not a minister; I have no special ability for christian work; I am just an obscure, humble Christian; I have no gift in that direction." Listen with your heart while I remind you that He needs not your special abilities or gifts, though He will use all you have, and the more the better, but He needs your personality as a human channel through which to touch the men you touch. And I want to say just as kindly and tenderly as I can and yet with great plainness that if you are refusing to let Him use you as He chooses—shall I say the unpleasant truth?—the practical blame for those ugly words, and the uglier truth back of them come straight home to you.
That is a very serious thing to say, and so I must add a few words to make it still more clear and plain. The Spirit of God in working among men seeks embodiment in men, through whom He acts. The amazing truth is that not only is He willing to enter into and fill you with His very presence, but He seeks for, He wants, yes, He needs your personality as a channel or medium, that living in you He may be able to do His work among the men you touch even though you may not be conscious of much that He is doing through you. Is not that startling? He wants to live in your body, and speak through your lips, and look out of your eyes, and use your hands, really, actually. Have you turned your personality over to Him as completely as that?
Remember the law of God's communication with men; namely, He speaks to men through men. Run carefully through the Bible, and you will find that since the Cain disaster, which divided all men into two great groups, whenever God has a message for a man or a nation out in the world He chooses and uses a man in touch with Himself as His messenger.
Listen to Jesus' own words in that last night's long talk in John's Gospel, chapter fourteen, verse seventeen. Speaking about the coming Spirit, He says, "Whom the world cannot receive." That is a strange statement. Though an important part of the Spirit's great mission is to the world yet it cannot receive Him. But chapter sixteen, verses seven and eight gives the explanation: "I will send Him unto you, and He when He is come (unto you) will convince," and so on. That is to say, a message from God to one who has come within the circle of personal relation with Jesus—that message comes along a straight line without break or crook. But a message to one who remains outside that circle comes along an angled line—two lines meeting at an angle—and the point of that angle is in some christian heart. The message He sends out to the outer circle passes through some one within the inner circle. To make it direct and personal: He needs to use you to touch those whom you touch.