Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter: 024. A Sensitive Thermometer

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Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter: 024. A Sensitive Thermometer



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 024. A Sensitive Thermometer

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A Sensitive Thermometer

Let the thoughtful earnest man look a bit at his inner motives from this point of view. Let there be no morbid spirit of extreme introspection, but a simple, wholesome look within. For example, there is no more sensitive thermometer than the money-thermometer, by which to find the degree of heat of one's passion for doing the Father's will. Let a man quietly alone ask himself how far the money he controls is being used as our Lord would have it used, and how far it is being used for himself.

Remember it is right to use some of it, a proper proportion for one's self and one's own; to do all that is needful for strength and comfort. Remember, too, that the passion of our Lord's heart is to have all men know fully and tenderly about His love and death for them; and that to-day two-thirds of them do not know anything about Him, and thousands of the other third know very little. I am not talking about the very proper thing of conscientiously giving a tenth of one's income. This question goes very much deeper—how far am I controlled in the money I control by the passion that controls my Lord's heart?

And of course the answer is not to be made to anybody else, but to one's self, and one's Master only. And that answer is not an answer of the lips. It is made entirely by what proportion of one's money is actually being used, or held, for one's self or one's own, and what proportion is being used in satisfying the burning passion of our Lord's heart for His world.

There are other thermometers that can be used in taking the heart temperature. This is only one. It is a very sensitive one. Perhaps most times it comes nearest to telling how far the warm love of our Lord's heart is affecting the temperature of our own. By so far as the passion of our Lord's heart is not dominant in ours, by just that much is this traitor-prince having use of us. It is a very searching question. It is not a question for any of us to ask another, but only for each to ask himself, or better yet to ask His Lord, off alone in the secret place.

David's prayer might be brought into use again, with a new meaning, in the light of this subtle Satan-characteristic:—search me, O God, and know my heart, and let me know what Thou dost find there. Apply the fire test to my controlling passions and purposes, and let me see how much dross Thou dost find there. See if there be anything there that pains Thy heart, and let me see as much of what Thou dost see as I can stand; and—I wonder if one's courage will stand the test of that closing petition—lead me out of that way, into Thy way, the Lord-Jesus-way, the way everlasting.